India-based Essar Steel announced an investment of $1 billion to run its Algoma steel plant in Canada at full capacity, at 4 million metric tons (mt) per year. Essar bought the Ontario, Canada-based facility for $1.6 billion in 2007.
According to Essar Steel CEO Malay Mukherjee, when Essar acquired Algoma in 2007, only one of the two blast furnaces at the plant was operational, producing only 1.2 million mt annually. After further refurbishment of the operational blast furnace, the production was taken up to over 2 million mt. "The unused blast furnace is ready for operation now and we can go to 4 million mt of production," Mukherjee said in a local Indian publication. This production, according to Mukherjee, will be aimed at the demand situation in the US and Canada.