shipments of the same species will be minimal and as a consequence the quality of pig iron will be practically a constant furthermore the administrative costs of purchasing from a few wood sources are irrelevant when compared to the purchase of charcoal from hundreds of different small producers who may use many different species of wood thus introducing additional variables to the blast furnace process wood processing does not generate pollution whereas the transport storage and handling of charcoal are highly pollutant the wood drying operation allows the recuperation of the evaporated water since it is trapped in the moist hot air exiting the drying station wood with 50 mc dried to 10 mc evaporates water which represents approximately 45 of the weight of the moist wood this is a relevant amount of water that is totally lost in the charcoal production process and can be recuperated adopting the present invention thus minimizing the use of water in the industrial process a wood better high energy density hardwood with or without bark better without bark to avoid fines to have uniform combustion and to avoid refractory deterioration is sent to the blast furnace site to produce as an example a certain particle size such as chips but not only this shape to be dried and heat treated at the wood drying station and classified with cyclones only coarse dry particles are charged into the blast furnace to be used as the fuel as the reducing and as.