BRUSSELS, 16 February 2007 — Arcelor SA and Mittal Steel Co., currently joining to become the world’s largest steel producer, said yesterday they would build a steel mill in Saudi Arabia to supply the oil industry. The companies said they would hold 51 percent of a joint venture with the Bin Jarallah group to construct a seamless tube plant in the eastern Saudi city of Jubail on the Arabian Gulf that could churn out 500,000 metric tons of steel tubes and pipes a year.
Saudi Arabian Oil Co., or Saudi Aramco, will be “one of the key customers” of the mill, Arcelor Mittal said. Aramco plans to spend $50 billion over the next five years to build more refineries in Saudi Arabia and other parts of the world and boost the Kingdom’s refining capacity by as much as 60 percent over this period.
Building work on the Arcelor Mittal plant will start at the end of next year’s first quarter and should be complete by the end of 2009, the companies said. The mill should employ 420 people.
Arcelor Mittal is in the process of completing its merger, estimated at around $33.4 billion. But that figure is not final as Brazilian market regulators CVM have ordered Mittal to buy out minority shareholders of Arcelor’s Brazilian unit and, on Tuesday, revised the offer price upward to 51.27 Brazilian reals ($24.31), saying Mittal’s original estimate was too low because it did not use the same formula as it did for Luxembourg-based Arcelor.