Bahrain contractor cancels $200m steel plant project

10 January 2011

Ahmed Mansoor Al-A’ali Company shelves plans for 500,000 tonne-a-year steel plant.

Bahrain’s Ahmed Mansoor Al-A’ali Company (Ama) has cancelled its plans to build a $200m steel mini-mill in the kingdom.

“The technical team at Ama has been desolved and now the project has been shelved,” says a source close to the project. “The exact reasons behind the cancellation is unclear.”

The plant, that was to consist of a steel shop, billet caster and rebar rolling mill and was to have a capacity of 500,000 tonnes a year (t/y) of steel on completion. Work was scheduled to take 20-22 months to complete.

No one at Ama was available for comment when contacted by MEED.

Ama is a Bahraini construction contractor and the company had planned to use up to 50 per cent of the steel rebar it produces for its own projects.

A contracting source who had submitted a bid for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the project says he has not heard anything from the project in months.

“We placed a bid in 2010 and have not heard anything since really,” says the source. “We are not expecting anything to emerge from this anymore.”

Germany’s SMS Group, Italy’s Danieli and Austria’s Siemens Steel had all entered into talks with Ama regarding equipment supply (MEED 18:8:10).

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