The bidders are: Austria's Voest Alpine Industrieanlagenbau (VAI), with Germany's Siemens; Italy's Danieli & Company; and Germany's SMS Meer, with India's Essar Global. The technical consultant is the UK's Atkins. Originally estimated to cost $300 million-350 million, the complex will have capacity of 1.2 million tonnes a year.

The client has also opted to add a direct reduction iron (DRI) unit to the original package, which covered rolling mill and meltshop facilities. The project is set to go ahead once a deal is struck to provide natural gas to the plant, which will in turn feed a captive power plant.

The Mussafah plant is one of several new steel facilities planned and under construction across the federation in response to a strong increase in demand. New capacity is also being brought on stream in Bahrain, Iran, Oman and Qatar (MEED 13:5:05).