Gulf Industrial Investment (GIIC) and the United Stainless Steel Company (USCO) have commissioned their Pelletiser 2 in Bahrain.
It means GIIC now has 11-12Mt/y of pelletising capacity making it the third largest in the world and the only pelletising company in the Arab world. The company's output in 2010 is forecast at 8Mt, 55% of which will head to GCC countries while the rest goes to global markets.
USCO is also the first Arab and Gulf company to produce stainless steel CRC with a 100kt/y capacity and $300M worth of investments.
The group’s also celebrated the establishment of United Steel Company (SOLB) which will have two DRI modules with 1.5mt/y capacity, 2 melt shops up to 1.3Mt/y capacity and two heavy to medium section rolling mills at a capacity of 1.2Mt/y.
The overall cost of these investments is $1.2bn in a JV between Foulath Holding Co (51% of shares) and Yamato Kogio of Japan (49%).
The shares of Foulath Holding Co are 50% for Gulf Investment Co, 25% Qatar Steel, Al-Kharafi Group and Kuwaiti National Industrial Group 10% each, and 5% to Kuwait Foundry.
When all these projects are complete, Foulath will have investments up to $3.5bn.
The commissioning took place in Salman Industrial City under the patronage of His Highness Prince Slaman bin Hamad Al Khalifah, Crown Prince and Chairman of the Board of economic development-Industrial Sector in Bahrain.
Additionally, GIIC doubled its exports in Q1 2010 to 1.313Mt compared to 363kt for the same period of 2009 – an increase of 261%. The company's imports of iron ore also doubled to 1.06Mt compared to 133kt for the same period of 2009.