Ukrainian steel pipe and railway wheels producer, Interpipe, has finalised financial arrangements for the construction and development of its planned 1.32m tonnes/year electric arc furnace (EAF).
The new steel plant is being funded via a debt financing package totaling $531m (€341m), with the remaining project costs being met through project sponsor equity, Steel Business Briefing learns from the company. The plant will be built in Dnipropetrovsk, eastern Ukraine.
As previously reported, the EAF, supplied by Danieli, will allow Interpipe to phase out existing open hearth steelmaking and also increase steel output by 75% (from 750,000 t/y), but expansion may not end there. The company is also considering further raising steelmaking capacity to 2m t/y by 2012.
In 2007, Interpipe produced 1.47m t of steel products, which represents a small year-on-year increase of 2.4%. Its sales revenue was $1.8bn (€1.2bn) or 24.3% more than in 2006.