Iron Ore, Pig Iron & DRI

Iron ore is bought on iron and priced on everything else, and the four products on this page are four different buyers. Fines (58–65% Fe) go to sinter plants and are priced as the 62% Fe CFR China index plus or minus a differential for silica, alumina, phosphorus and loss on ignition; lump and pellets go straight into the furnace and earn a premium for it, with pellets bought on compression strength and tumble index and DR-grade pellets on gangue; pig iron is blast-furnace hot metal cast cold, bought by electric-arc and induction melt shops and foundries as a clean chemistry that dilutes the residuals in scrap; and DRI/HBI is ore reduced without melting, bought by electric-arc furnaces for the same reason, with HBI the seaborne form because cold DRI is an IMSBC Group B cargo. CBIL is a commodity brokerage company and does not pretend to broker the Pilbara or Carajás majors' term tonnage. It works the second tier: spot and short-term parcels from mid-sized miners and traders in Malaysia, South Africa, Kazakhstan, India, Indonesia and Oman, and pig iron and HBI from Indian, Malaysian, Gulf, US and Ukrainian plants, against SGS, Intertek or Bureau Veritas load-port certification. UN Comtrade 2025 export declarations put South Africa at 65.7 million MT of HS 2601 at USD 93/MT, Malaysia at 20.1 million MT at USD 59 and Oman at 10.7 million MT at USD 137; India at 0.60 million MT of pig iron at USD 373; and India, the USA and Malaysia at 1.61, 0.93 and 0.76 million MT of DRI/HBI. Parcels run Supramax to Capesize for ore and Handysize to Supramax for metallics on FOB and CFR terms, and because CBIL also runs a chartering desk (LaycanDesk) the freight is quoted with the cargo.