South Korean steel goliath POSCO and its 68.15 percent-owned trading house affiliate Daewoo International will cooperate with Turkey's Kibar Holding for its previously announced stainless steel cold rolling plant project in Kocaeli, Turkey. The parties signed an agreement at Emexotel in Kocaeli on January 6 for the implementation of the $350 million project.
The plant will be POSCO's second investment in Turkey, following the launch of its Bursa plant in October 2010.
As SteelOrbis previously, the greenfield investment will include a stainless steel cold rolling mill and initially create employment for 1,000 people directly and indirectly. The annual production capacity of the plant will be 200,000 mt, while groundbreaking is slated for the first quarter of 2011.
Turkey's increasing demand for stainless steel products amounted to 300,000 mt, Ali Kibar, Chairman of the Executive Board of Kibar Holding, said, adding that the project scheduled to be completed in 2013 will satisfy this demand to a large extent.
It is indicated that the mill will produce products of stainless 300 and 400 series, with surface qualities of BA and 2B, in thicknesses ranging from 0.3 mm to 5 mm and in widths ranging from 700 mm to 1,600 mm. Furthermore, it is planned to increase the annual production of the plant in phase 2 to 400,000 mt or 600,000 mt depending on future decisions.
As SteelOrbis previously reported, on October 27 this year POSCO held a ceremony to mark the commissioning of its new flat steel processing plant POSCO-TNPC in Nilufer, Bursa, Turkey. POSCO commenced the construction of the $24 million plant with 170,000 mt annual capacity in 2009, targeting the highly active automotive sector in Bursa.