Pig iron

Pig iron is crude iron produced by smelting iron ore in a blast furnace, the intermediate step between mined ore and finished steel.

Pig iron is the crude, high-carbon iron that comes out of a blast furnace after it has melted iron ore, along with coke and limestone, at high temperature. It is not yet steel; it still needs further processing in a steelmaking furnace to remove excess carbon and impurities and reach the properties steel users need.

The name comes from the old practice of pouring molten iron into sand molds that resembled a sow with piglets feeding, though the term now just refers to this intermediate product regardless of how it is cast or handled today. Pig iron can be traded on its own between iron and steel producers, or produced and consumed within a single integrated steel plant that never sells it separately, which is why it appears less often in trade statistics than finished steel.