Steel Industry

The iron and steel industry is highly competitive, and most countries view it as one of national strategic importance. The global steelmaking market produced 1. 87 billion tonnes of crude steel in 2019. Of this, approximately 70% was produced through traditional Blast Furnace/Basic Oxygen Furnace (BF/BOF) facilities. About 30% is produced via electric arc furnaces (EAF). In the United States, this share is roughly reversed – 68% of steel is produced via EAF mills.

The main input for traditional BF-BOF production are iron ore concentrates, lump, and pellets. In EAF production, the primary input is scrap and supplementary virgin iron units , i.e, Pig Iron, Hot Briquetted Iron (HBI) or other forms of Direct Reduced Iron (DRI).

Many EAF producers attempt to target approximately 30% virgin iron units in their production process as higher ratios of virgin iron produce higher quality steels. Many North American producers, however, find it difficult to source virgin iron units unless they own their own DRI/HBI facilities.

There are 100 steelmaking and production facilities in the United States, of which there are eight large integrated steel mills. Canada is home to 19 steelmaking facilities in five provinces, five of these being integrated steel mills.

The new Maritime Iron iron plant will add value to the North American iron and steel industry through its domestic supply.