１９９８年钢铁工业发生周期性的下挫，亚洲钢铁市场因全球危机使得电炉炉料需求降低，包括ＤＲＩ在内的钢铁产品需要大幅度降低。尽管如此困难，世界直接还原铁的产量仍比１９９７年增加了２．５％，达到３７１０万ｔ，这是由于大量直接还原设备于１９９７年末和１９９８年初? The cyclical plunge in the steel industry in 1998 led to a reduction in the demand for electric furnace charge due to the global crisis in the Asian steel market and the drastic reduction of steel products including DRI. Despite this difficulty, the output of the world’s direct reduced iron has still increased by 2.5% over 1997 to 37.1 million tons due to the large amount of direct reduction equipment being produced in late 1997 and early 1998.