voestalpine Abandons Efforts to Secure Land in Romania
12/19/2008 - voestalpine Group defers indefinitely its decision on a possible location of a new greenfield steel plant in the Black Sea region, bringing to a halt all efforts to secure property at a potential location in Romania.
Based on the current economic situation and uncertain future outlook, voestalpine Group has decided to defer indefinitely its decision regarding the possible location of a new greenfield steel plant in the Black Sea region. The company had previously announced it would postpone its decision, and had also frozen the related evaluation project.
As part of the evaluation phase, voestalpine had identified four possible locations in Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey and Ukraine. The company said that all four possible locations would be examined again once the project is reactivated.
The company said that activities that had been initiated during the course of securing a potential site in Constanta (Romania) would be abandoned. These activities had been started because the legal framework in Romania had prevented the company from securing the plot in any other manner. As the decision has been postponed indefinitely, the company will no longer pursue securing the land any further. The company said that it would not exercise the options that had been acquired.
voestalpine operates one of the most energy-efficient, environmentally friendly steel plants in Europe at its site in Linz. Although the company has continued to develop this steel plant in the last few years with investments of approximately EUR 3 billion, further expansions are limited by space restrictions. The company has been considering the construction of a “twin” steel plant on the Black Sea has been under consideration since September 2007. The proposed plant would have the capacity to produce approximately 5 million tonnes of high-quality steel products a year.
