“...the buzz these days is about iron ore, a key ingredient in steel.”
Um, earth to Joe: Iron is THE key ingredient in steel.
You can have steel without carbon, moly, chrome, nickel, vanadium, etc - all those other alloying elements, but no iron means no steel, period, end of discussion.
Note: You can’t have steel without carbon, that’s
what makes it steel. Otherwise it’s just wrought iron.
Cast Iron is when you have too much carbon.