Midrex announces production milestone

Charlotte, North Carolina-based Midrex Technologies Inc. has announced that sometime in June, plants operating with Midrex’s Direct Reduction Technology reached a cumulative production of 1 billion metric tons of direct reduced iron (DRI) products. The production figures have been verified each year by steel industry information services firm World Steel Dynamics, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

Midrex says it reached 500 million tons of DRI after 38 years and then its next 500 million tons in 11 years. The company adds that at the end of 2017, Midrex plants were operating at about a 60 million tons per year rate, with sufficient capacity under construction to push the rate to about 75 million tons per year by the end of 2020. Assuming the continuation of its historical growth rate, Midrex says the second billion tons of DRI products could be achieved in about 13 years.

“We are pleased to announce this production milestone,” says Stephen Montague, Midrex’s president and CEO, “not only as recognition of the reliability of our technology and the outstanding work of the Midrex family of plant owners and operators, but also because it comes in a year that [will see] DRI production grow by 20 percent.”

DRI is an iron ore-based product that can be used at electric arc furnace (EAF) steel mills as a supplement to iron and steel scrap or, in some cases, as a replacement for it.