4. Reduced transport and world mineral trade

After timid beginnings that were more experiments and trials than real regular commercial operations, the transport of reduced ores took off around 1988/1989, as shown in figure 10 (from MIDREX). Nevertheless, these statistical data are not easy to interpret, especially those concerning overland trade (railroads and, sometimes, trucks...); however, they are in fairly good agreement with our own estimates, as shown in table 7 . MIDREX estimates show that there is more and more transport of HBI (7.6 Mt in 2003), but there is still a significant trade in DRI, and the ISPAT group (the world's largest DRI producer) remains a supporter of the production and transport of DRI, which accounted for a total of 4.6 Mt in 2003....