Achieving this milestone on its continuous galvanizing line on 9 October, the UAE-based complex has, within a record time, produced a million tons each in its pickling line, cold rolling mill and galvanizing line. Production at the greenfield facility began in September 2008 and the lines have been in continuous production since then.
 
CEO Abu Bucker Husain attributes this performance to the strong economies of the region and excellent support by the ZonesCorp and Abu Dhabi Government to non-oil based industries. “Despite starting our operations at the peak of the global economic crisis, we managed to do well on the strength of the quality of our products. In the very first year we reached 100% capacity utilization of the plant. Currently, we are producing a little over the installed capacity. UAE has been able to rebound better than most other economies after the economic crisis and the construction industry is buoyant after the latest announcements of various developmental projects.”  
 
Al Ghurair Iron & Steel LLC — the first and the only flat steel cold rolling and galvanising complex in the UAE — is a joint venture of the Al Ghurair Group, UAE and Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation (NSSMC) of Japan. New equipment has been ordered to expand the production capacities at the existing location and the commissioning is scheduled for early 2015. Tenders for Civil Works have been floated and work on the ground is scheduled to commence before the end of this year.
 
“In addition to commissioning a new Continuous galvanizing line to increase the total production capacity, a skin pass mill is also being added to the existing line in order to increase the product basket. AGIS plans to provide the substrate steel sheets to the prepainting and color coating lines in the region” said Mr. Husain.