Under the patronage of His Royal Highness Prince Salman Bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince and Chairman of the Economic Development Board of the Kingdom of Bahrain, Gulf United Steel Holding Company (“Foulath”), a leading global steel investment vehicle and holding company and the world’s first fully integrated steel producer, today marked the official inauguration of Foulath and three of its major investments, which together with the existing facilities, comprise the Company’s manufacturing complex in the Kingdom of Bahrain with a total investment value of approximately $3.5 billion.
The inaugural event was held at Foulath’s Steel Complex, located in Bahrain’s Hidd Industrial Area, stretching across 1.3 million square metres. It is the world’s first fully integrated steel manufacturing facility and home to Foulath’s investee companies: Gulf Industrial Investment Company (GIIC), a world-class pelletizing company, which is one of three merchant plants in the world and the only one located in the Middle East, United Stainless Steel Company (USCO), the region’s first manufacturer of stainless steel, and United Steel Company (SULB), which will be the region’s only producer of beams and medium and heavy structural sections. Together these companies are the only in the world that start with the manufacturing of pellets through to final product at the same site.
Established in June 2008, Foulath has recently launched its new corporate identity, concluded the consolidation of key administrative functions of its investee companies at its fully integrated steel complex and commenced efforts to further articulate its vision and execute its strategy, which aims to see Foulath drive further development in the region’s steel industry, add value to the regional economies and become one of the world’s most competitive steel manufacturers through investments across the entire steel value chain from “Mine to Metal.”
The event further served to underscore Foulath’s commitment to making ongoing investments across the region, with additional pelletizing projects planned in Egypt and Oman, whilst also highlighting a number of recent developments at Foulath’s existing investee companies. This included:
The inauguration of the second pelletizing plant at GIIC, with a production capacity of 6.0 million tons per annum, making it the largest grate-kiln pelletizing plant in the world, and just adjacent to GIIC’s first pelletizing plant which has been operating in Bahrain since 1984;
The inauguration of USCO’s stainless steel cold rolling plant, with the capacity to produce 100,000 tons of cold rolled stainless steel per year. This is the first plant of its kind in the Middle East.
The establishment of the $1.2 billion SULB project, with a production capacity of 1.5 million tons per year from its Direct Reduction Iron Plant, production capacity of 1.2 million tons per year at its Steel Melt Shop and production capacity of 1.0 million tons per year at its Heavy and Medium Section Rolling Mill, which is expected to replace about 14% of the current imports of medium and heavy sections into the region.