Iron ore pelletising plant operator Gulf Industrial Investment Company (GIIC) expects to push production beyond the 2002 level to match an upsurge in demand.
"This year we plan to produce 3.3 million tonnes," said GIIC general manager (technical) Carlos Magno Barcelos. "And because the market is very strong all over the world we may even exceed that figure to reach 3.6 million tones."
GIIC produced 3.07 million tonnes in 2002 compared with 2.84 million tonnes in the previous year. The plant has an annual production capacity of four million tonnes of pellets for use in direct reduction (DR) and blast furnace (BF) plants. However all the pellets the company has produced in recent years were for DR plants. "The last time we produced pellets for BF was in 2000 and the quantity was small," said Barcelos.
The DR process for making steel is favoured in markets that have abundant reserves of inexpensive natural gas or non-coking coal and access to suitable iron ores or pellets
Barcelos said if market demand would be consistent and promising, GIIC would consider expanding plant capacity by at least one million tonnes as a first step.
All of GIIC's production is exported with Qatar Steel Company and Saudi Iron and Steel Company (Hadeed) listed as big customers and accounting for as much as 40 to 50 per cent of the Bahrain plant's sales. GIIC pellets also go to Iran, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and North Africa, among other markets.
GIIC is jointly owned by Gulf Investment Corporation (GIC) and ItalaItabira Rio Doce Company Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Brazil's Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD).
In Brazil, CVRD has long experience in mining iron ore and pelletising. The company operates nine pelletising plants in Brazil with production of some 40 million tonnes annually. The company has joint ventures in the US and other countries in steel production but GIIC is its first pelletising plant outside Brazil.
The plant can produce tailor-made pellets to meet individual customer requirements and specification. Coated pellets can be produced on request.
The pellets are produced in an Allis-Chalmers grate/kiln/cooler plant. Facilities exist for drying, grinding and blending different types of iron ore. The company also has its own jetty. The power plant consists of three gas turbine/generator units with a total installed capacity of 81MW.
GIIC imports its iron ore from Brazil and Iran while bentonite is imported from India. Bahrain supplies the limestone the plant needs while natural gas comes from Bahrain's Khuff reservoir.
DR processes are gas-based or coal-based, the former accounting for an overwhelming portion of the world's DR production. The most common DR process is the Midrex process with a vertical shaft furnace that utilises lump ore and/or pellets as feed. This amounts to about two thirds of world direct reduced iron (DRI) production. HYL III is a similar process. World DRI and hot briquetted iron (HBI) production in 2000 stood at about 43.2 million tonnes. The sponge iron or DRI/HBI is an alternative feed or substitute for scrap and pig iron used in the electric arc furnace.
HBI/DRI is considered a relatively pure material devoid of the contaminants that can be found in scrap. The Middle East, with its plentiful energy supplies, has seen substantial growth in DR plants with production of 2.4 million tonnes in 1990 and 8.5 million tonnes in 2000.
