Venezuela's largest hot-briquetted iron producer, Briquetera del Orinoco (BriqOri), is producing only 1,000 mt of HBI per day, around 12% of its installed capacity, sources at the company said Thursday.
In June, the company reported producing 36,000 mt of HBI, 19.6% of its installed capacity of 183,333 mt/month.
In the same period in 2015, the company was producing at an average of 75,000 mt/month during the third quarter of the year, more than 50% of the output.
The company's president, Wilfredo Villarroel, confirmed BriqOri is currently working with only one train.
"Currently, two of those three productive trains are under a 40-day maintenance period, but soon they will resume operations," he said.
Villarroel said the company is the only HBI producer in the country working with out stoppage since 2014.
The HBI market has been driven down in Venezuela by a lack of pellets and energy, as well as soft international demand and low export prices.
Platts assessed August bookings of Venezuelan HBI at $150-$180/mt FOB Venezuelan ports, up $20/mt from July bookings ($130-$150/mt).
In 2015, the company produced 511,533 mt of HBI, 236% higher than 2014's output of 152,397 mt. Its monthly average production of HBI was around 42,000 mt last year and 12,000 mt in 2014, it said.
BriqOri has installed HBI capacity of 2.2 million mt/year. This is almost one-third of Venezuela's annual HBI production capacity of 6.9 million mt.
