Turkey-based global steel manufacturer Tosyalı Holding announced on Thursday that it has 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, stated in a press release that ground investigation and engineering designs for the complex have been completed, and construction and assembly will commence in the coming days.
While the investment figures were not disclosed, the first phase of the project will have a capacity of 2.7 million tonnes. The complex, developed by the joint venture Tosyalı-SULB company, will serve the Hot Briquetted Iron (HBI) needs in neighboring markets and Europe.
According to the International Iron Metallics Association (IIMA), the primary market for HBI is electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaking. HBI is also used as a trim coolant in basic oxygen furnace (BOF) steelmaking and as blast furnace feedstock.
The Benghazi project will utilize MIDREX Flex DRI technology, similar to Tosyalı’s Algerian project. This technology allows for the substitution of any percentage of natural gas feedstock with hydrogen, enabling the production of low-carbon steel products.
Tosyalı Algerie, which employs DRI technology, is Algeria’s largest industrial exporter outside the oil and gas sector, with 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 a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to establish an integrated iron and steel production facility based on MIDREX Flex DRI technology in the Kingdom. The planned facility will have a Hot Rolled Coil (HRC) production capacity of 4 million tonnes per year and a Cold Rolled Coil (CRC) production capacity of 1.6 million tonnes per year. A Bloomberg report indicated that the Turkish steelmaker plans to invest up to $5 billion in the Saudi project.