Tuwairqi Steel Mills Limited (TSML) has signed an agreement with AMZ Securities Ltd to raise funds to finance additional expenditure for its state of the art iron and steel project, coming up at Port Qasim.
According to TSML here on Monday, (AMZ) will act as the financial advisor and arranger to raise finance for the project, having a designed capacity of 1.5 million tons per annum and an initial operational capacity of 1.28 million tons per annum of directly reduced iron (DRI) and billets.
TSML, Director (Projects), Zaigham Adil Rizvi and Chairman AMZ Securities, Athar Naseem Sheikh have signed the agreement on behalf of their respective organisations. The additional capital expenditure is required due to improvement in the scope of phase-I by including an intermediate phase of the project till phase-II.
Rizvi pointed out that TSML, a subsidiary of Al-Tuwairqi Group of Saudi Arabia, has plans to commission the DRI plant in the first quarter of 2009. He said that the core part of the plant and machinery has already been imported and major civil work was completed while mechanical works were being carried out on fast track.
"Keeping in view the local and international demand for the steel products, TSML has planned alongside the DRI plant an induction furnace project to produce 0.5 million tons per annum of billets as an intermediary phase, he added.
Rizvi said that TSML has also decided to put in place plans for the backward integration in steel manufacturing process and is aggressively pursuing the plan to set up a pelletisation plant and exploration of local iron ore. The steel complex will be utilising the DRI process of Medrix Technologies USA owned by Kobe Steel of Japan.
For billet manufacturing in phase-II, TSML would be employing "electric arc furnace technology" from Germany. Chairman AMZ Securities, Athar Naseem Sheikh said that this foreign investment which is the first in an infrastructure project in recent years, reflects the confidence of ATG in Pakistan, and will be helpful in attracting Foreign Direct Investment in the country for industrialisation.