Manila's steel mill

Manila's steel mill

MANILA (AFP): The construction of the Philippines' first integrated steel mill will start in June, this time using technology from the Voest-Alpine company of Austria rather than a mothballed British plant, the industrial group spearheading the project said Friday.

Eduardo Gumaru, spokesman of Grupo F. Jacinto, a business group long engaged in the local steel industry, said the project, including the construction of the plant in the southern Philippines, will cost about $1.06 billion.

Jacinto had decided to use a state-of-the-art "Corex-type," plant from Voest-Alpine rather than go with their original plan to transfer a mothballed blast furnace from British Steel's former plant in Ravenscraig, Scotland, he said.

He also said that instead of manufacturing only steel slab, as originally planned, the enterprise now intended to produce hot- rolled coil.

An earlier plan to sell the plant's output almost exclusively to Ang Feng Steel of Taiwan, however, will not push through as the Taiwan firm wanted to buy mainly steel slab.