News about the detention of a vessel with 33,000 mt of HBI at an Italian port (preliminarily alleged to be Russian and breaking the sanctions of the European Union) has been circulating in the market since early January, according to market sources.
The investigation has been started by the Guardia di Finanza and the customs authorities at the Italian port of Brindisi. The name of the vessel is HIZIR REIS and it arrived at Brindisi port, Italy on November 21, 2025, after departing from Russia’s Novorossiysk port on November 16. According to the local Italian press, officials have confirmed “serious inconsistencies, falsifications, and alterations to onboard documentation relating to the locations of stops and loading operations." A few market sources have also confirmed that they hear the HBI on the vessel has documentation of Turkish or Indian origin, which is suspected to be a falsification since Turkey does not have HBI production and India can supply only locally made sponge iron, which usually is not transported to distant markets.
The EU had a quota for Russian HBI of 1.14 million mt in 2024 and 651,906 mt in 2025. “When the vessel arrived in November, there was still a quota, so shipping from Novorossiysk to the EU was technically not illegal,” a market source commented, adding that the main issue should be the change of documentation if the seller wanted to sell these materials after the quota had finished.