The Al-Tuwairqi Group of Saudi Arabia has finalized a $820 million investment in a steel making facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The investment will be in phases and in the first phase a one-million-ton-a -year steel mill will be set up in Sharjah's Hamriyah Free Zone, according to a press statement published today. An official of Al-Tuwairqi Group said the group took up the project in view of the huge demand for steel in the UAE, where the construction sector is booming. The UAE's steel demand is put at 2.5 million tons a year. The Sharjah complex, admeasuring 1.4 million square meters, will produce one million tons of steel, mainly from iron ore and billets. The facility will be a profile factory for automatic fabrication and welding, and a DRI plant, a billet plant, and a rolling mill, each of the three with one million tons per annum capacity. The group will also set up a 300-megawatt power generation plant. The Hamriyah facility will produce custom-designed heavy steel structures used in high rise buildings, bridges, oil rigs, airports, and other load bearing structures. The DRI plant and the billet plant will go on stream by end-2006 while the rolling mill will start rolling its products by mid-2007. The profile factory at the steel complex in Hamriya and the steel cut and bend factory in Dubai will become operational by January next year.
