Egypt, the largest consumer of direct reduced (DR) grade pellets in North Africa, may face a short-term pellet shortage as a result of Vale's production cuts, Fastmarkets heard at the North Africa Iron & Steel Summit in Cairo on April 16-17.
"There will be a challenge in the next few months to secure DR pellets [a feedstock for direct-reduced iron making] as a knock-on effect of Vale's accident," one steel producer, who uses pellet as a raw material said. "It will be difficult to compensate the shortage [of DR pellets] from other suppliers, even [from those who have pellets] of low quality." In 2019, Vale's Brazil operations - the world's biggest iron ore producer - expects iron ore and pellets sales to reduce to 307-332 million tonnes per year,...