Kurdistan-based United Brothers Holding, which is acting as an agent of Iraq’s Industry Ministry, has awarded Italy’s Danieli with a contract for a steel-making plant in Khor al-Zubair.

MEED understands the new plant will be installed within an existing building in the industrial area of Khor a-Zubair, some 80 kilometres away from the southern Iraqi province of Basra.

According to Danieli, the new mini-mill will have a production capacity of 500,000 tonnes of billets a-year once completed.

It will consist of a 70-t electric arc furnace (EAF) and a 70-t ladle furnace (LF) equipped with ladle lifting system, which will help avoid crane engagement for ladle transfer car exchange. The plant will also be equipped with a material handling system serving EAF and LF ferroalloys and additives and a fume dedusting plant filtering both EAF and LF.

It is understood that a 9-m continuous caster machine will produce 150 x 150 millimetre square billets on four strands.

Danieli said it will endeavor to make use of the existing civil works infrastructure at the site in order to reduce the required capital expenditure for the new plant.

The plant is expected to be completed in the summer of 2019.

It will be managed by Iraq’s Industry Ministry.