AMMAN - Jordan Steel expanded its industrial operations on Monday by officially rolling a new casting plant known as the Consolidated Jordanian Iron and Steel Company.
The project, a 50-50 joint venture with a group of Palestinian investors represented by Yacoub Hassouneh, began in late 2004 and the firm started experimental production only last June.
Marking the official launch of billet production, Jordan Steel General Manager Emad Badran told a press conference that the casting plant was established to lower manufacturing costs and ensure a stable quality and continued supply of raw material to the local market.
Badran said: "Due to rising demand in the local market and abroad for reinforcement bars and associated products and due to high prices of raw materials, which account for the major part of production costs, Jordan Steel opted to cooperate with a group of Palestinian investors to set up a plant to supply the needed raw materials."
He indicated that the new company sought the assistance of foreign experts to train local workers and pointed out that the factory was furnished with advanced machinery and equipment bought from Germany, Finland, Italy and other European countries.
Hassouneh said the JD70 million plant has a 250,000-tonne capacity per year that can be raised to an output of 360,000 tonnes as all the facilities and infrastructure at the site are designed for such an increase.
He explained that the new factory comprises three main parts which are the electric arc furnace, the laddle refinery furnace and the continuous casting machine.
"The plant can produce billets measuring 100x100 and 150x150mm at different lengths up to 12 metres," Hassouneh said noting that the factory uses electric power in the casting of iron as well as high technology and computers in the processing stages.
He expected the factory to save much of the cost and, as a result, boost the company's competitiveness. Also, he said the company will be able to achieve stability and safeguard against severe worldwide fluctuations in the prices of raw materials.
The casting plant will depend on the recycling of metal scrap and residuals left behind at yards around factories, construction sites in addition to car bodies.
After the casting process, steel will be transported to Jordan Steel and other rolling mills where it will be manufactured into various types such as reinforcing bars, merchant steel and wiremesh.
According to Badran, this Arab-Arab partnership is an attempt to shift the steel industry from full reliance on importing raw materials from foreign markets to local production and achieving no less than 50 per cent in value added.
"As the scrap metal available in the local market may not be enough for local factories, this requires concerned authorities and the government to reconsider the policy of exporting scrap metal, either by halting exports, just as the case is in neighbouring countries, or by imposing additional taxes on the supply to outside markets, whereby the price becomes unfeasible," Badran said.
The Jordan Steel general manager stressed that metal scrap is an important national wealth that supplies raw materials to this heavy and strategic industry.
Noting that Jordan's imports of steel and iron reached $380 million in 2006, Badran predicted higher local demand on this commodity especially in light of the huge investments in Jordanian real estate.
The plant currently employs 250 workers in different sections.
By Samir Ghawi
© Jordan Times 2007
