On October 12, Qatar-based steelmaker Qatar Steel Company announced that in September this year it supplied about 60,000 metric tons of hot briquetted iron (HBI) to Japanese steelmaker JFE Steel Corporation. The company had started direct reduced iron (DRI) and HBI sales in October 2007.
Prior to the commencement of shipments, HBI samples from Qatar Steel went through quality checks before JFE Steel Corporation judged that the material met its standards. Consequently, a HBI shipment to Japan was made through Qatar Steel-registered traders Stemcor & Mitsui, an independent steel trading company.
To date, Qatar Steel has exported DRI/HBI to countries in the Far East (South Korea, China, Indonesia), India, within GCC (UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia), other Middle East countries (Egypt, Iran) and Europe (Spain) and achieved the landmark of selling 1 million mt of DRI/HBI by the end of 2009 since Qatar Steel's first DRI/HBI sale.