Steel Asia Manufacturing Corp. to Invest P25-Billion for Three Integrated Steel Mills

Three integrated steel facilities will be built in Luzon and Visayas thanks to Steel Asia Manufacturing Corporation, the country’s largest steel producer. The company’s PHP25-billion investment is part of its PHP80-billion expansion plan set to be completed in six years. The expansion plan mainly revolves around the production of steel products currently not manufactured in the local market.

“The opportunity today, there’s strong demand with infrastructure coming up. There’s market, there’s opportunity in short period of time to have our own steel industry,” said Steel Asia Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Benjamin Yao in a media briefing.

Once the facilities are in operation, it will bring major progress to the country’s steel manufacturing industry. Up to now, the Philippines rely on Steel Asia to produce reinforcement steel or rebars.

“These are three integrated mills which will make its own steel and then convert it into steel products, which include two products which are currently not produced in the Philippines, one hundred percent imported. So, it will be the first of its kind here in the Philippines,” said Steel Asia Corporate Development Vice President Rafael Hidalgo.

The three mills will be built in Lemery, Batangas; Concepcion, Tarlac; and in Compostela, Cebu. The plant in Cebu will be the first one to commence operation in 2019 followed by the other two in 2020.

The three mills will be producing sections for infrastructure projects and wire rods for manufacturing of industrial products. Part of Steel Asia’s vision for the mills is for them to be able to supply the annual demand in the local market of 4.5 million tons for rebars, 600,000 tons for wire rods, and 700,000 tons for sections.

The steel plants will have their own scrap-recycling facilities to convert the scrap to billet, which is the raw material for sections and wire rods. This will eliminate the need to export 1 million to 2 million tons of scraps, which are being converted into billets, blooms, and slabs in other countries, and then importing them back to the Philippines as midstream steel products such as rebars, angle, sections, wire rods, hot rolled coil, and plate.

Once the mills are fully operational, Steel Asia will be 60-percent self-sufficient in billets. It is currently importing 80 percent of its billets.

via Philippine News Agency / Kris Crismundo