DRI & HBI (Direct Reduced Iron)

Hot briquetted iron and DRI by metallisation, carbon and gangue for EAF melt shops

Direct reduced iron is iron ore reduced to metal in a shaft or rotary kiln without melting, and it is bought as a chemistry sheet. Metallisation (the share of total iron present as metallic iron, 90–94% for shaft-furnace DRI and HBI, 85–90% for coal-based rotary-kiln sponge iron) sets the yield; total Fe (90–94%) and metallic Fe (83–88%) follow from it; carbon (1.0–2.5% for gas-based, ≤ 0.2% for coal-based) is a bonus for an electric-arc furnace that would otherwise buy charge carbon and a penalty where it is absent; gangue (3–6% silica plus alumina, carried straight through from the pellet) is slag the furnace melts and phosphorus (0.02–0.05%) and sulphur (≤ 0.01% gas-based, up to 0.03% coal-based) are what the pellet and the reductant left behind. Residuals — copper, tin, nickel, chromium — are essentially zero, which is the whole reason a melt shop buys it. The form matters as much as the sheet. Cold DRI pellets are porous and re-oxidise: they generate heat and hydrogen in contact with water, and the IMSBC Code lists DRI (B) as a Group B cargo that must be carried under inert gas or with holds sealed and monitored, aged and cooled before loading, with a moisture ceiling and a certificate from a competent authority — and many owners decline it. Hot briquetted iron is the same iron compacted at over 650°C into 90–130 mm briquettes of density above 5 g/cm³; it is IMSBC DRI (A), far less reactive, carried in ordinary bulk holds and stockpiled in the open, which is why HBI is the seaborne product and cold DRI mostly moves short-haul. UN Comtrade 2025 export declarations under HS 7203 put India at 1.61 million MT at an average USD 294/MT, the USA at 0.93 million MT at USD 351, Malaysia at 0.76 million MT at USD 354, Oman at 23,575 MT at USD 250 and Kazakhstan at 3,690 MT, out of 10 declaring origins. India's own 2025 destination list shows its book is overland coal-based sponge iron, not seaborne HBI: Nepal 1.16 million MT at USD 282/MT, Bangladesh 0.34 million MT at USD 326 and Bhutan 0.10 million MT at USD 305, with every seaborne destination below 4,000 MT. The seaborne HBI trade in that data is the American and Malaysian tonnage at USD 350/MT.

The buyer is an electric-arc furnace rolling a product with a residual limit — low-carbon wire rod, flat products, special bar — or a mill in a scrap-short market that wants a metallic it can contract for a year at a time; induction furnaces buy coal-based sponge iron for the same reason at the cheaper end. That buyer prices HBI against pig iron and premium scrap on a delivered-metallic-iron basis, netting the value of the carbon and the cost of the gangue, and the arithmetic is why a 92% metallised HBI at USD 350 can beat a busheling cargo at USD 300 for one mill and lose for another. CBIL is a commodity brokerage company and brokers HBI and DRI from Malaysian, Indian, US and Gulf direct-reduction plants and trader positions to electric-arc and induction melt shops against producer analysis and SGS or Intertek verification of metallisation, total and metallic Fe, carbon, gangue, phosphorus, sulphur, size and moisture, sampled at the load port with the load-port certificate governing. Parcels are structured in Handysize and Supramax bulk lots on FOB and CFR terms; because CBIL also runs a chartering desk (LaycanDesk), the freight leg is quoted alongside the cargo and the desk fixes only tonnage whose owners accept the IMSBC schedule for the form being shipped — HBI is straightforward, cold DRI needs an owner who has carried it. Send your metallisation floor, carbon target, gangue ceiling and whether your furnace is arc or induction, and we will work the plant to it.

Need the ship as well? Our chartering desk prices bulk ore and metallics freight on LaycanDesk.