Beltrame mulls steel plant in Argentina

Italy?s Gruppo Beltrame, Europe?s fifth largest steelmaker, is considering plans to build its first plant outside Europe in Argentina at a cost of about $53 million to manufacture plate for the shipbuilding sector, R?o Santiago shipyard (ARS) said in a statement.

The group?s manager Antonio Beltrame last week met with Buenos Aires province Production Minister Débora Giorghi and ARS President Julio Urien, and expressed Gruppo Beltrame“s interest in building the plant. ARS, a company run by Buenos Aires province, said that one possible location for the plant could be the provincial district of Ensenada, 60 kilometres south of Buenos Aires City, where ARS is located

The plant would manufacture between 150,000 and 200,000 tonnes a year of a kind of thick plate that is not produced in Argentina. About 70% of the production would go to the domestic market and the rest would be exported. The plant would mean the creation of about 100 direct jobs and 200 indirect ones.

Privately-owned Gruppo Beltrame has nine plants in Europe, where it produces 2.3 million tonnes a year and employs 1,950 workers. It also manufactures steel products for the building sector. ARS is coming back to life after a virtual standstill last decade. This year it started building the first of several oil tankers ordered by Venezuela at a total cost that Giorghi put at $300 million. The steel plates for these newbuildings come from Venezuela.

Back in October, Urien had signed a cooperation agreement Italy?s state-run shipyard Fincantieri to build, repair and maintain ships.