SteelAsia forges $250-M Russia deal
MANILA, Philippines - SteelAsia, the country’s largest steel company, has signed deals with two of Russia’s leading steel firms for the supply of billets and technology and skills transfer.
SteelAsia said yesterday it signed a $250-million long-term supply agreement with Evraz for a guaranteed monthly supply of 50,000 tons of semi-finished steel or billets for SteelAsia’s rolling mills in Davao City and Meycauayan, Bulacan.
Billets are the input material for many long steel products, including rebars.
SteelAsia said it also inked a cooperation arrangement with Kurganstalmost JSC involving engineering services as well as training and technology transfer to SteelAsia.
Kurganstalmost is Russia’s leading producer of steel structures, according to SteelAsia.
“We have found that Russian companies are very reliable business partners,” SteelAsia chairman and CEO Benjamin Yao said.
Yao said the long term billet supply contract assures the company of a stable supply of raw material, insulating the country from rebar shortage, while the technology and skills transfer are in preparation for SteelAsia’s diversification into steel structures.
”Our expansion plans are all geared toward supporting the country’s focus on massive infrastructure build up,” he said.
Since 1998, SteelAsia said it has procured about 3.24 million tons of billets worth $1.23 billion from Russia.
In the first quarter alone, the company had purchased 240,000 tons of billets worth $93 million.
Evraz has operations in the Russian Federation, Ukraine, United States, Canada, Czech Republic, Italy, Kazakhstan and South Africa, while Kurganstalmost is part of Russian industrial and infrastructure giant Mostostroyindustria of the Transstroy Corp.
SteelAsia has a capacity of 2.3 million metric tons, with six plants strategically located across the country. It is expanding its rebar capacity to four million metric tons in the next five to seven years.
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