Oman Aluminium Rolling Company has awarded Italy’s Fata the $300m engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for a new rolling mill at Sohar in Oman.

The scope of works includes the installation of a continuous caster, supplied by the US’ Hazelett, and a hot rolling mill, supplied by Fata Hunter, a subsidiary of Fata.

The plant will have an annual capacity of 160,000 tonnes a year (t/y). It will cost $385m in total and create about 275 jobs when completed in 2013.

The rolling mill will produce aluminium food containers and food preservation foil, as well as material for the automotive heat exchanger and air conditioning markets.

Molten metal will be supplied by the neighbouring Sohar Aluminium Company and sales agreements with Bahrain’s Gulf Aluminium Rolling Company will market the mill’s products until an in-house sales and marketing team is established.