DRI output leaps in 2021

World DRI Production rises nearly 14 percent year on year, according to technology provider Midrex.

midrex dri iron
Midrex says the 2021 13.7 percent growth figure is a year-on-year record.
Photo courtesy of Midrex Technologies Inc.

Global direct reduced iron (DRI) production in 2021 was 119.2 million tons, up by 13.7 percent from the 104.8 million tons produced in 2020, according to Charlotte, North Carolina-based DRI equipment provider Midrex Technologies Inc.

The 13.7 percent annual growth represents a boost from the new year-on-year 10.2 percent growth from 2019 to 2020. The 13.7 percent 2021 growth figure also is a year-on-year record, surpassing the prior year’s 10.2 rate. “From 2016, worldwide DRI output has grown by almost 44.4 million tons, or nearly 61 percent,” Midrex says.

The company says plants it designed and supplied produced 70.85 million tons of output in 2021, which it says is a 12.3 percent increase compared to 2020. “Midrex Technology continued to account for about 80 percent of worldwide production of DRI by shaft furnaces,” the firm says.

DRI, sometimes considered either a scrap substitute or a scrap additive, continues to lag ferrous scrap as a feedstock in melt shops globally. Statistics gathered by the Ferrous Division of the Brussels-based Bureau of International Recycling indicate China alone consumed 226.2 million metric tons of ferrous scrap in 2021. The same organization estimates 630 million metric tons of ferrous scrap were melted globally in 2019.

Each year, Midrex says it compiles and publishes World Direct Reduction Statistics as a resource for the global iron and steel industry. New Jersey-based World Steel Dynamics (WSD) audits the data collection and preparation processes used by Midrex to confirm the methodology and accuracy of the data are representative of the global direct reduction industry in a given year, adds the firm.

Access to the Midrex report covering 2021 can be found here. The 44-page BIR statistical summary of ferrous scrap and steelmaking can be found here.

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