Major expansion.

(From Gulf Construction)

Keeping pace with the growing demand for flat and long products, leading Saudi Arabia-based steel manufacturer Saudi Iron and Steel Company (Hadeed) has recently kicked off a series of expansion programmes that will strengthen the company's position in the fast-growing construction markets both within the kingdom and outside. The expansion is expected to double the company's capacity for flat products by the end of 2006 and is also expected to boost its production capacity for long products, says a company spokesman

Hadeed has recently entered into contracts with Italian and Austrian companies to fulfill its expansion drive. As per the contracts, Italian Danieli and Saudi Dywidag will supply and set up a new plant for the production of steel reinforcing bars and wire rods with an annual capacity of 500,000 tonnes beside the existing long product plants at its complex in Jubail Industrial City

The company has also entered into contracts with Saudi Voest Alpine Company and another with the Austrian Voest Alpine Company and the US Midrex Technologies to establish a direct reduction plant - Module E - which will have an annual capacity of 1.7 million tonnes of directly reduced iron (DRI). This ironwork will use modern technology to enable the company to produce hot reduced iron at temperatures as high as 600 deg C, increasing the steel plant's production by 15 per cent, says the spokesman

Once complete, Hadeed will produce more than 5.1 million tonnes through all its five modules, making it the world's largest producer of DRI operating from a single location, he says

Hadeed has also signed an agreement with Saudi Voest Alpine, Saudi Siemens and another agreement with a consortium incorporating the Austrian Voest Alpine and German Siemens to set up an steel plant with an electrical arc furnace, with an annual production capacity of 1.4 million tonnes of molten steel, and a continuous steel casting facility with an annual production capacity of 1.2 million tonnes of steel

Technology initiative Hadeed introduced bar quenching technology to its rolling mills in Jubail in 1988 to enable the manufacture of superior quality concrete reinforcing bars. This technology employs a state-of-the-art process involving high pressure surface quenching followed by self-tempering