Kazakhstan has bought the local subsidiary of steel giant ArcelorMittal after a series of fatal accidents in the country's mines.
In October, 46 people died in a blaze at the Kostenko coal mine in the Karaganda region -- the worst accident in the Central Asian country's post-Soviet history, which prompted the nationalisation of the company's local affiliate.
Last week, the national government announced that it had bought the ArcelorMittal subsidiary in a deal ‘worth $286 million’.
"The Kazakh government and ArcelorMittal have reached an agreement to transfer the ArcelorMittal Temirtau company to Kazakhstan."
Statement from the Kazakh government
"The Kazakh government and ArcelorMittal have reached an agreement to transfer the ArcelorMittal Temirtau company to Kazakhstan," it stated.
The Karakh industry minister Kanat Sharlapayev said the agreement was ‘a mega-deal of exceptional importance for Kazakhstan’, the largest economy in Central Asia.
ArcelorMittal has faced a number of incidents in the local area, with a previous accident in 2006 killing 41 miners at another of the steel giant’s sites, two months after another incident killed five miners.
The steelmaker had been in negotiations with the Kazakh government for several months and that a deal was reached.
Source: Mining.com