Siemens Industry Inc., Washington, D.C., and consortium partner Midrex Technologies Inc., Charlotte, N.C., has received an order from the Austrian Voestalpine group to build a direct iron reduction plant in the United States. The Midrex plant will be constructed near the city of Corpus Christi, Texas. It is designed to produce two million metric tons of hot briquetted iron (HBI) per year, making it the largest single module of this type worldwide. The plant is due to begin operations in late 2015.
The consortium of Siemens and Midrex will provide engineering, mechanical and electrical equipment, and advisory services for the direct reduction plant. At the Quinta Trade Gateway site near Corpus Christi in San Patricio County, Voestalpine will invest around $720 million. This also includes comprehensive infrastructure improvements for the project location, particularly the necessary port facilities.
The direct reduction plant will provide Voestalpine’s Austrian steel production sites in Linz and Donawitz with access to cost-effective and environmentally-friendly HBI. About half of the annual production will be shipped there. The remaining half will be sold to partners interested in longer-term contracts. In May this year, Altos Hornos de México (AHMSA), Mexico’s largest steel manufacturer, signed a memorandum of understanding with Voestalpine. AHMSA intends to source several hundred thousand tons of high quality HBI from the new Voestalpine location annually.
The Midrex facility will produce high-quality HBI from iron ore pellets, which is comparable to the highest quality scrap or pig iron. In contrast to using mainly coke in the blast furnaces, the planned direct reduction plant will only use natural gas as the reducing agent, which is much more environmentally friendly. This improves the carbon footprint of the Voestalpine Group and will be an important step in the achievement of the Group’s energy efficiency and climate protection objectives.
