Venezuelan hot-briquetted iron producer Briqueteras de Venezuela, or BriqVen, has completed more than two months offline due to the lack of pellets without a timeframe for the resumption of operations, sources within the company said Thursday.
"The company stopped operations at the end of May due to the lack of pellets and energy supply," one source said, adding the company receives the necessary amount of power but continues out of pellets.
Located in the city of Guayana, BriqVen has 125,000 mt/month of installed capacity.
In the first quarter of 2016, BriqVen received around 150,000 mt of pellets from Sidor, which made operations possible. In the second quarter, however, sources said no pellets were seen.
In the first five months of the year, BriqVen produced around 49,000 mt of HBI, the company confirmed. The output is already higher than the 47,000 mt produced in the same period of 2015, and 45,000 mt in 2014.
In May, the company's union requested the minister of basic industries, Juan Arias, to intervene, as neither Sidor nor Ferrominera Orinoco were supplying pellets to the HBI producer. Both companies supply Venezuela's entire steelmaking industry, and most of the HBI producers rely on their pellets supply.
Sidor resumed operations at its 8 million mt/year pellets plant in April after more than a month of stoppage due to several internal issues, including the lack of energy.
Ferrominera Orinoco was running its 3.3 million mt/year pellets plant with production rates low due to energy constraints and other issues. It stopped operations at the end of July for a programmed maintenance program.
