“There will be a challenge in the next few months to secure DR pellets [a feedstock for direct-reduced iron making] as a knock-on effect of Vale’s accident,” one steel producer, who uses pellet as a raw material said. “It will be difficult to compensate the shortage [of DR pellets] from other suppliers, even [from those who have pellets] of low quality.”
In 2019, Vale’s Brazil operations - the world’s biggest iron ore producer – expects iron ore and pellets sales to reduce to 307-332 million tonnes per...