SteelAsia Manufacturing Corp. has tapped Italian metals technologies company Danieli Co. Ltd. for the supply of equipment to build the Philippines’ first heavy steel sections mill.
SteelAsia in a statement on Monday said under their agreement, Danieli will supply all the core equipment and technology for the P30-billion project in Candelaria, Quezon, which will produce heavy beams, angles and channels, sheet piles and narrow plates, all of which are imported at the moment mostly from China and Vietnam.
SteelAsia said sections are most suitable for seismic zones or typhoon belts such as the Philippines, because of their tensile strength advantages over reinforced concrete.
“Steel is the base development of any country. This is laying the foundation of future development in the Philippines, and this is what we are seeing everywhere in the world,” Danieli chief executive officer Giacomo Mareschi Danieli said in the statement.
7,000 jobs to be generated
The Candelaria mill and another section plant under construction in Batangas will generate 7,000 jobs, SteelAsia said.
The company said both mills will start operating in 2027 and will cut delivery lead times, particularly for infrastructure projects, from three months for imported steel to just two weeks locally.
The signing ceremony was witnessed by Davide Giglio, ambassador of Italy to the Philippines, and Secretary Frederick Go, Special Assistant to the President for Investment and Economic Affairs, SteelAsia said. It did not indicate when or where the event was held.
Go said in the statement that SteelAsia’s two section mills would replace $1.2 billion worth of imports annually.
SteelAsia expects the Candelaria mill to avoid 2 million tons of carbon dioxide per year by using Danieli’s green steel technologies, saying it will have one of the lowest carbon footprints in the world for steel plants.
The Candelaria plant will be the company’s sixth operating steel mill.
