Steel company eyes $500-M expansion

Steelasia Manufacturing Corp. is rolling out an aggressive expansion plan that will require a fresh capital outlay of almost $500 million and involve the setting up of three new production facilities.

In a briefing Friday, SteelAsia president Benjamin O. Yao said the three proposed facilities would manufacture wire rods, steel sections, and plates—all of which were currently being imported by local industries.  This will be the first time SteelAsia is venturing into the production of these products as the company has been focused on steel rebars manufacturing.

This will also be the first time wire rods will be manufactured locally. The country stopped making steel plates when National Steel Corp. was closed.

The target, according to Yao, is to produce 600,000 tons a year of wire rods (used for industrial applications) in a facility that will be put up in Candelaria, Quezon; 600,000 tons of steel sections (H-beam, I-beam, angle, channel, sheet pile), and 300,000 tons of plates in a Cagayan de Oro plant.

“The local production of these steel products will help accelerate the country’s industrialization because these can provide raw materials for the manufacturing sector … We are not creating jobs only in our own mills but in other industries as well,” said Steel Asia VP Rafael O. Hidalgo.

These facilities, when fully operational, are expected to contribute to the domestic market about 1.5 million tons of steel products that are currently being imported.