DRI and BFI Exit Drops In August

World Steel Association (worldsteel) announced the publication of data on iron production for August this year. Blast furnace iron (BFI) production as well as direct reduced iron (DRI) production declined slightly from the previous month.

Global DRI output declined slightly from 6.798 million tonnes in July to 6.753 million tonnes in August this year. India was the largest producer with a capacity of 2.435 million tonnes. DRI production in Iran amounted to 2.020 million tonnes. In third place was Mexico with 465,000 tonnes. These three countries accounted for almost 73% of world production. DRI output amounted to 56.470 million tonnes during the first eight months of the year.

According to global statistics, the BFI output in August 2018 amounted to 106.654 million tons, which was slightly lower compared to the output of 107.469 million tons in July. During the first eight months of the year, the cumulative production of DRI worldwide was 825.621 million tonnes.

The Asian region continued to be the largest BFI producer with 84.717 million tonnes throughput during the month. The region accounted for over 79% of world production. With 66.655 million tons of production, China topped the Asian countries. Almost 79% of Asian production came from China. BFI output in Japan totaled 6.750 million tonnes, followed by India (5.996 million tonnes) and South Korea (4.043 million tonnes). With the exception of North America, all other regions recorded a decline in BFI output during the month.