Published by: Serife Durmus<>, Marina Shulga<>, India-Inés Levy <> , Darina Kahramanova<>
28 Feb 2025 @ 15:58 UTC

Tosyali Sulb Steel Industries has commissioned metals technology and building companies Midrex Technologies and SMS Group to carry out the first phase of the construction of a cold direct-reduced iron (CDRI) plant in the Benghazi region of Libya.

The deal was announced by SMS Group on Tuesday February 25. The plant will have capacity for 2.5 million tonnes per year.
Tosyali Sulb is a partnership between steelmakers Tosyali Steel of Turkey and Libya United Steel Co for Iron & Steel Industry (SULB).
We are excited to use our expertise in DRI plant operation and value-added steel production to transform the Libyan steel industry into an ecosystem that produces high-quality green steel products with low carbon emissions, Tosyali Steel chairman Fuat Tosyalı said when the CDRI plant was announced.
According to the announcement, the first phase will begin immediately with the construction of a CDRI unit. Production output was intended to cater to demand from the Mediterranean region, it said.
In July 2024, Tosyali Steel announced that it had signed an agreement with Sulb to invest in a DRI complex in the region, indicating that capacity would eventually amount to 8.1 million tpy when all parts of the plant were completed.
The proposed CDRI plant will use Midrex technology, which can use natural gas before transitioning to using hydrogen when it becomes available.
Supply of DRI from Tosyali Sulb will come at a time of growing demand for DRI and hot-briquetted iron (HBI) globally, but particularly in the EU and in Turkey, several sources told Fastmarkets.
The EU could develop a big appetite for HBI, an international trader based in Europe said. Some companies even want to sign contracts for several years, from 2027 onward.
HBI demand in the EU has been growing mainly because of the region’s decarbonization strategy, and with the intention to increase the share of steelmaking that uses electric-arc furnaces. And the flow of supplies from Russia, historically the largest supplier of HBI to the region, was now affected by trading sanctions.
For 2025, the EU’s quota for imports of HBI was set at 651,906 tonnes, but in 2026 such imports will be banned.
In 2024, the EU imported 3.2 million tonnes of HBI, with 1.14 million tonnes coming from Russia, according to Global Trade Tracker. Of this tonnage, the largest share – 42.69%, 487,995 tonnes – was supplied to Italy.
HBI imports to the EU totalled 2.72 million tonnes in 2023, GTT data showed.
Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment for hot-briquetted iron, cfr Italian ports, was $325 per tonne on February 27, up from $310-315 per tonne a week earlier.
There was also growing HBI demand in Turkey, where the key driver of demand was the cost-effectiveness of the country’s steelmaking operations compared with importing semi-finished steel products for re-rolling.
As long as it is more effective to make steel [using a combination of scrap, pig iron and HBI], the demand for raw materials will be high, although the situation can change when billet and slab imports become of more interest, a trader from Turkey said.
Tosyali Steel is one of Turkey’s largest importers of HBI and pig iron.
In 2024, Turkey imported 1.05 million tonnes of HBI, up by 34.33% from 689,559 tonnes in 2023, according to GTT.
Tosyali considers expansion in Europe Tosyali Steel has also submitted an offer for the potential acquisition of Liberty Steel’s plant at Dudelange in Luxembourg, industry sources told Fastmarkets on February 25.
The Dudelange facility is part of Liberty Steel Belgium, which includes two production sites in Liege – Tilleur and Flémalle. These facilities all specialize in the production of cold-rolled coil, hot-dipped galvanized coil and tinplate.
In December last year, however, the Dudelange plant was declared insolvent and a receiver was appointed. The Belgian assets also entered a process of liquidation and Liberty Steel’s attempts to organize a reacquisition of them has been unsuccessful.
Industry sources told Fastmarkets that, for now, Tosyali Steel is interested only in the Dudelange unit.
Liberty and Tosyali declined, at the time of publication, to respond to Fastmarkets’ questions regarding the potential acquisition of the facility.
According to industry sources, the plant was in good condition and could be restarted comparatively quickly.
Separately, Tosyali Steel purchased Spanish tube producer Baika Steel Tubular Systems (STS) for an undisclosed sum early in 2024.
Fastmarkets contacted Tosyali Steel, SMS Group and Midrex Technologies for comment on this story. Tosyali Steel did not respond to requests for comment at the time of publication. Midrex Technologies and SMS Group declined to comment.