The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

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CLF’s cost of producing HBI (entirely from internal sources) is ~$200/ton, a huge saving compared to the ~$1,000/ton for imported pig iron used by CLF’s competitors.

For blast furnaces, adding HBI pays for its entire production cost in savings since it lowers coke costs by ~$200/ton, using the current $400 / ton coke costs and assuming a 500 kg/ton coking rate. CLF has already shut down two coke plants this past year as a result of adding HBI to blast furnaces.

CLF has also been seeing a 10-15% (or higher) increase in hot metal productivity with the HBI/NG combination implementation for upgraded blast furnaces.