Turkey-based global steel manufacturer Tosyalı announced on Thursday that it signed an agreement with Libya United Steel Company for Iron and Steel Industry (SULB) to build the world's largest Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) complex with a total capacity of 8.1 million tonnes in Benghazi, Libya.

Fuat Tosyalı, Chairman of Tosyalı Holding said in a press statement that ground investigation and engineering designs for the complex have been completed, and construction and assembly will start in the coming days.

The statement didn't disclose the investment numbers but said the first phase will have a total capacity of 2.7 million tonnes.

The complex, to be built by the joint venture Tosyalı-SULB company, will cater to the Hot Briquetted Iron (HBI) requirements in neighbouring markets and Europe.

According to International Iron Metallics Association (IIMA), the principal market for HBI is electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaking but HBI is also used a trim coolant in basic oxygen furnace (BOF) steelmaking and blast furnace feedstock.

The Benghazi project will be equipped with MIDREX Flex DRI technology, also deployed in Toysali’s Algerian project, which allows substitution of any percentage of natural gas feedstock with hydrogen to enable production of low-carbon steel products.

Tosyalı Algerie, which uses DRI technology, is Algeria’s largest industrial exporter outside the oil and gas sector and has an annual capacity of 2.5 million tonnes of long and flat products.

In January 2024, Tosyalı Holding and Saudi Arabia's National Industrial Development Centre (NIDC) signed an MOU to set up an integrated iron and steel production facility based on MIDREX Flex DRI technology in the Kingdom. The plant is slated to have Hot Rolled Coil (HRC) production capacity of 4 million tonnes/year and Cold Rolled Coil (CRC) production capacity of 1.6 million tonnes/year. A Bloomberg report said the Turkish steelmaker plans to invest as much as $5 billion in the Saudi project.

(Editing by Anoop Menon) (anoop.menon@lseg.com)

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