ArcelorMittal buys 80pc of Texas HBI plant

Global steelmaker ArcelorMittal plans to acquire an 80pc stake in Voestalpine's hot briquetted iron (HBI) plant in Corpus Christi, Texas.

ArcelorMittal will spend approximately $680mn to buy the 80pc stake from Austria-based Voestalpine, with the value of the facility listed at $1bn, Voestalpine said.

The deal is expected to close in the next two to three months.

The purchase of the majority stake in the 2mn metric tonnes/yr HBI plant on the Texas Gulf coast comes just days after the Austrian steelmaker announced it would be selling the stake in the facility.

As a part of the deal, Voestalpine signed a long-term agreement with ArcelorMittal for production equaling its 20pc stake, or 420,000 t/yr of HBI, for its steel mills in Austria.

The remaining 1.6mn t/yr of production will be delivered to third parties under existing supply contracts and eventually to ArcelorMittal's joint venture ArcelorMittal/Nippon Steel (AM/NS) Calvert flat-rolled mill in Alabama. A new 1.5mn t/yr electric arc furnace (EAF) being built there will be partially fed with HBI from Texas.

The EAF, located north of Mobile, Alabama, is expected to be commissioned in the second half of 2023, and is accessible via barge from the Corpus Christi HBI facility.

The Corpus Christi plant exported 506,000t in 2021, and 1.1mn t in 2020, according to US Commerce Department data. Austria received 105,000t in 2021 and 99,000t in 2020 from the plant.

ArcelorMittal also said the Texas HBI plant, which opened in 2016, could be switched from natural gas to renewable energy-based hydrogen in the future.

In Canada, ArcelorMittal is converting its Dofasco integrated steel mill into a 2.4mn t/yr EAF and building a new 2mn t/yr direct reduced iron (DRI) plant on-site to supply raw material to the mill. Both are expected to be operational by 2028.

By Rye Druzin