Société  Internationale  Métallique  (SIM)  is building a 2.0-million t/a hot briquetted iron (HBI) plant in the Bécancour Waterfront Industrial Park, a public-owned industrial park on the shores of the Saint-Lawrence River (Quebec); the site is a year-round deep water port and connected to major North American rail and road infrastructure. SIM has  chosen Midrex Technologies, Inc. and its construction licensee Primetals Technologies to furnish the equipment and oversee the technological aspects of the project.

Midrex and Primetals Technologies will be responsible for providing the principal equipment of the plant, in coordination with a construction and engineering firm that remains to be selected. Using the Midrex NG Process, Midrex and Primetals Technologies are designing the plant to have a rated capacity of 2.0 million t/a of HBI, making it one of the largest HBI modules in the world. Midrex  Technology is also being used in a similar plant currently under construction in Texas in the United States.

The Midrex Process is said to be the technology responsible for nearly two thirds of the world’s annual DRI production and the primary technology behind most HBI produced today. SIM will produce HBI by merging state-of-the-art technology with high quality and strategically located iron ore. “SIM’s new plant is positioned to be a leader in clean iron-reducing and in the secondary transformation processing of iron ore in the province of Quebec,’’ stated Mr. Daubeny B. Cooper III, President of Société Internationale Métallique.

Construction is expected to begin in 2017 for a 2-year period, enabling the plant to start operations in 2019, according to planning.

Primetals Technologies with Société Internationale Métallique and Midrex Technologies, Inc.