Posted on 08 Apr 2020
Moon Iron and Steel Company (Misco) has commissioned its electric arc furnace-based billet plant but will have to wait a while longer to launch the rebar mill due to Covid-19-related delays, a company official tells Kallanish.
The new steelmaker has signed an offtake agreement with Duferco that is already seeing the trader sell 130mm and 150mm square billet produced at the new 1.2 million tonnes/year capacity billet plant.
The 1.1m t/y capacity rolling mill for 8-40mm diameter rebar, however, cannot currently complete commissioning as the engineers required to supervise the process cannot travel into Oman due to Covid-19 restrictions. The firm is hopeful commissioning can be carried by the end of April.
The Misco steelworks is partly owned by Gulf Investment Corporation, Oman Development Fund and the Sultan Special Forces Pension Fund. Its location of Sohar is home to 2m t/y crude steelmaker Jindal Shadeed, 600,000 t/y crude steel capacity Sohar Steel, and re-roller Al Jazeera Steel, as well as Vale’s 9m t/y iron ore pelletising plant.
The new steelworks adds significant new steelmaking capacity to a relatively small market like Oman. It will be competing against Jindal Shadeed and Sohar Steel in the domestic rebar market, as well as for exports to neighbouring larger consumer United Arab Emirates.
Omani exports of billet have increased since Shadeed commissioned its EAF in 2014, totalling 633,000t in 2018 versus 481,000t in 2017 and 108,000t in 2016, according to worldsteel data.
Oman’s apparent finished steel consumption, meanwhile, rose 2% on-year in 2018 to 1.47mt.
Source:Kallanish
