Iron Ore Lumps & Pellets

Direct-charge lump and blast-furnace / DR-grade pellets by Fe, tumble index and CCS

Lump and pellets are the ore a furnace can charge without sintering, and that is what the premium over fines buys. Lump (6–40 mm, or 10–40 mm for stricter burdens) is bought on Fe (60–64%), silica, alumina and phosphorus like fines, plus two mechanical numbers: a decrepitation index, because a lump that shatters when it hits the furnace heat becomes fines in the wrong place, and a fines fraction below 6.3 mm at discharge, which is why it is bought on a dry, screened basis and re-screened at the receiving end. Pellets (9–16 mm, 63–67% Fe) are a manufactured product and carry a manufactured specification: cold compression strength (CCS, ≥ 250 daN per pellet for blast-furnace grade, higher for direct reduction), tumble index (≥ 94% above 6.3 mm) and abrasion index (≤ 5% below 0.5 mm), reducibility, swelling index and, for DR-grade pellets, a silica-plus-alumina ceiling of about 2–3% and Fe of 67% or better because a direct-reduction shaft has no slag to hide gangue in. Basicity (CaO/SiO₂) is written for fluxed pellets. 2024 export declarations under HS 2601.12 (agglomerated ore, mostly pellets) show a trade led by majors: Brazil 26.3 million MT, Sweden 16.0 million MT and Canada 13.9 million MT, with Oman's 10.3 million MT the output of Vale's pellet plant at Sohar, sold by Vale. India declared 8.2 million MT at about USD 113/MT, and that is the second-tier pellet trade: merchant pellet plants selling part cargoes, some loaded first at Haldia's shallower berths and topped up at Paradip. China, the main outlet, recorded 7.76 million MT of Indian pellets in 2024 and 3.72 million MT in 2025 at about USD 116/MT, while its intake from Oman rose to 6.59 million MT. The spread over fines is the value of a pellet the furnace can charge as it arrives. Lump is priced as the fines index plus a lump premium in cents per dry metric tonne unit; blast-furnace pellets carry a premium assessed over the 65% Fe index, and direct-reduction pellets a separate premium assessed at 67.5% Fe, both moving with the sinter-plant economics of the buyer.

The buyer of lump is a blast furnace that wants to lift its direct-charge ratio and cut sinter cost; the buyer of blast-furnace pellets is the same furnace, or a mill without a sinter plant; the buyer of DR-grade pellets is a direct-reduction plant in the Middle East, North Africa, India or Southeast Asia, and that last buyer is the strictest of the three. CBIL is a commodity brokerage company and brokers lump from South African junior miners and Indian exporters, and pellets from Indian merchant pellet plants and trader positions, against SGS, Intertek or Bureau Veritas certification of chemistry, size distribution, CCS, tumble and abrasion indices and moisture, sampled at the load port to ISO 3082 with the load-port certificate governing. Lump is worked in Supramax and Panamax lots out of Saldanha and the Indian east coast; pellets in part cargoes and Supramax or Ultramax lots out of Paradip, Haldia and Visakhapatnam, and pellets are handled with the same care as fines because a pellet cargo fractured in loading is a fines cargo on arrival. Because CBIL also runs a chartering desk (LaycanDesk), the freight leg is quoted alongside the cargo on FOB and CFR terms. Send your CCS and tumble floors, silica-plus-alumina ceiling and whether the pellet is for a blast furnace or a direct-reduction shaft, and we will work the plant to it.

See also: Iron ore pellets: BF and DR grade, premiums and buyers by country

Need the ship as well? Our chartering desk prices Chattogram to Vietnam mill scale freight on LaycanDesk.

Excluded origins are not offered, including product re-exported, blended or re-processed through a third country. Every lot moves with a certificate of origin naming the producing plant, mine or grower country, and nothing is quoted before the seller and loading point are known.