India’s Jindal Steel has completed civil works at the $400m expansion of its steel plant in Sohar in Oman and the main construction is just about to commence work.

Italy’s Danieli Corporation is providing the process technology for the expansion, which will add 1 million tonnes a year (t/y) of capacity to the existing facilities when completed in 2013.

The project was awarded to Danieli after direct negotiation between the company and Jindal Steel, which owns the Shadeed plant.

MEED reported in June 2011 that Jindal planned to spend $400m on the Shadeed plant over the next two years, taking total investment to about $864m, with the $464m it paid to the UAE’s Al-Ghaith Holdings.