South Korean steel giant to invest $200m

World’s fourth largest steelmaker signs MoU with Tuwairqi Steel Mills.

ISLAMABAD:

South Korea’s largest steel manufacturer, Pohang Iron and Steel Company Limited (Posco), will sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Tuwairqi Steel Mills Limited (TSML) on Saturday to expand production capacity of Tuwairqi’s steel plant at Karachi’s Port Qasim.

“Posco, which is the world’s fourth largest steelmaker, is investing $200 million to expand the production capacity of Tuwairqi’s steel plant at Port Qasim,” Board of Investment (BOI) Chairman Saleem H Mandviwalla said on Friday.

The MoU for this joint venture will be signed on Saturday in Karachi in the presence of Sindh government representatives, he added.

He said that initially Posco would be taking 15 per cent stake in Tuwairqi. The joint venture to produce steel products for automobiles and construction goods will be completed in 2015 with an annual production capacity of two million tons, he said.

Mandviwalla said that Posco would be a great success in Pakistan in monitory terms. “The gap between steel’s demand and supply in Pakistan is met through imports. It is expected that the demand for steel products will be around 18 million tons against the supply of around 10 million tons in 2015,” he said.

The BOI chairman said that Posco would also set up a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in the country.

Both Posco and Al Tuwairqi have been in the steel business for many decades.

Al Tuwairqi Holding is setting up a state-of-the-art steel plant with an operational capacity of 1.28 million tons per annum of direct reduced iron (DRI) at Port Qasim.

The BOI chairman said that the investment into the country this year had been around $1.6 billion.



Published in The Express Tribune, September 10^th, 2011.