Steel Products
March 24, 2018
Goncalves Bullish on Cliffs' HBI Prospects
Written by Tim Triplett
“The trend is our friend,” said Lourenco Goncalves, the chief executive of Cleveland-Cliffs, Inc., pointing to the growth of electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaking around the world. Cliffs is on track for commercial production of hot briquetted iron (HBI) by mid-2020 at its facility under construction in Toledo, Ohio, he told executives at S&P Global Platts’ Steel Markets North America conference Tuesday in Chicago.
Cliffs’ new plant will have the annual capacity to produce 1.6 million tons of HBI, which will have a big impact on a 3-million-ton market. “To displace half of what is imported now should be an easy task,” Goncalves said.
