Austria's biggest steel producer Voestalpine has confirmed to SteelOrbis that the company is currently continuing with their preliminary work as regards the establishment of a new steel plant and that Turkey is still one of the four candidates for the location of the plant.
In mid-October Voestalpine had announced the postponement to 2009 of its decision on whether to construct a €5 billion new flats mill on the Black Sea coast, citing the current uncertainty over the global economy. However, this postponement of the decision had been misunderstood by some sources and taken as an entire cancellation of the investment.
Commenting on the ongoing process, a Voestalpine official has confirmed to SteelOrbis that the company is still carrying out necessary studies and that Turkey is still one of the four candidates for the new steel plant, adding "We are treating all four countries equally. All have equal chances. We can however not compare the advantages and disadvantages of the four countries in detail as all of them have certain advantages and disadvantages. Overall they are all pretty equal; therefore we continue to consider all four of them."
As per the initial plans, the Voestalpine plant would have an annual production capacity of five million mt of flat steel products. A number of countries, including Ukraine, Turkey and Bulgaria, had expressed interest in attracting the investment.