Austrian steelmaker voestalpine has announced that it has received significant interest from potential customers for the sponge iron to be produced at its direct reduction plant planned to be built just outside the city of Corpus Christi, Texas, US. Voestalpine has signed a memorandum of understanding with Altos Hornos de Mexico (AHMSA), Mexico's largest steel manufacturer, according to which the latter will source several hundred thousand tons of high quality hot briquetted iron (HBI) annually from 2016 onwards, for its mill in Monclóva.
According to voestalpine, AHMSA has recently increased its existing crude steel capacities by around 40 percent. This allows voestalpine, which itself will require around half of the plant's output for its own locations in Europe, to guarantee stable demand for a very substantial part of the remaining half, even before construction of the plant has begun.
As SteelOrbis previously reported, in March this year voestalpine announced that it will build a direct reduction plant with an annual output capacity of 2 million mt of HBI. The company will invest €550 million in the plant.
