The local Atoun Steel Industry (ASI) will move forward with plans to build a $265m steel plant at Yanbu Industrial City II (Yanbu) after Riyadh granted a fuel allocation for a related power station.

 “ASI has been told that fuel allocation for the power supply at Yanbu has now been approved by the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources,” a company source tells MEED. “ASI will be meeting with officials from Yanbu in early July and hopefully be pressing ahead with the project as soon as talks have been completed.”    

The source adds that the completion date for the project will be late 2012 to 2013, but that will be confirmed after talks have taken place with Yanbu.

MEED reported earlier in June that plans for the plant had been delayed by a lack of fuel allocation (MEED 11:6:2010)

The plant is set to include a billet caster producing 900,000-t/y of steel billets and a rolling mill producing 500,000-t/y of steel rebar, reinforcing bars used in the construction industry, when completed. The metal will be predominately sold in the domestic market.

Austria’s Saudi Voest Alpine, a subsidiary of Siemens, is providing the plant technology for the facility    

ASI is a closed joint stock company comprising of mostly Saudi Arabia private investors. The company has been granted a loan of around $147m from the state-owned Saudi Industrial Development Fund to help cover the cost of constructing the plant.