Category: News

Global industrial services and engineered products company Harsco Corporation has announced three multi year contract awards for onsite steel mill services from new customers in Bahrain, Sweden and Chile totaling more than USD 135 million in projected revenues.

The contracts include the first steel mill to be built in Bahrain, the all new United Steel Company steelworks now nearing completion in the Hidd Industrial Area of northeastern Bahrain. The mill will be the Gulf Region’s first fully integrated producer of medium and heavy beams and structural steel sections, and is also envisioned to become the lowest cost producer of its kind in the world. Harsco’s new five year contract, scheduled to begin in the second half of this year, will service the mill’s anticipated production levels of close to one million tons per year, with objectives for further capacity expansion in the coming years. The SULB works becomes the second Harsco Metals & Minerals group operating site in Bahrain, joining Harsco’s AluServ aluminum dross processing facility at Askar which will now also provide slag processing support for the SULB contract.

The award in Sweden comes from SSAB, the largest Nordic manufacturer of heavy steel plate, and calls on Harsco to provide a range of scrap management services at SSAB’s plant in Oxelosund over a ten year period. Harsco’s services will enable the mill to better maximize its usage of internally generated scrap for improved efficiency and lower costs, while also enhancing the sorting and segregation of highly alloyed scrap materials for various production recipes. Harsco’s work will include a high-productivity Ferrocut(R) operation for reducing oversized scrap material into production-ready sizes.

In the third award, Harsco will begin services at the Gerdau AZA steelworks in Chile, a leading regional producer of steel products for the construction sector and other markets. Gerdau AZA is one of the two largest steel plants in Chile, and with this latest award, both are now served by Harsco. Harsco’s work will include slag processing, metal recovery and the sale of slag aggregates. The Company’s services are scheduled to start up in the third quarter of 2012 and, following completion of a slag processing site, the Company expects to be fully operational with all service activities by the first quarter of 2013. The six year contract adds to Harsco’s relationship with the Brazil based Gerdau Group, the largest producer of long steel in the Americas and one of the main suppliers of special long steel in the world.

Source:https://newsonprojects.com/news/global-industrial-services-to-execute-bharain-steel-mill

Mumbai-based JBF won a USD200 million contract from Bahraini Ministry of Industry and Commerce to set up a polyester film plant in Salman Industrial City, Arabian Business reported.

Under the agreement JBF will carry out the construction works of the plant on a 65,000sqm site, expected to start early next year.

The new plant is expected to provide 300 jobs, with a production capacity of 90,000 tonnes in the first phase which can be expanded at a later stage.

The plant’s polyester film, which is used in packaging of electronics and food products, will mainly be marketed in the European Union and the US in order to benefit from the free trade agreement with the US.

Source:https://newsonprojects.com/news/bahraini-ministry-of-industry-and-commerce-to-set-up-a-polyester-film-plant-in-salman

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund PIF will become an anchor investor in an infrastructure fund being launched by Bahrain’s Investcorp and Aberdeen Standard Investments.

Aberdeen Standard Investcorp Infrastructure Partners (ASIIP) received a capital commitment from the $430 billion PIF for up to 20% of the total size of the fund ahead of its anticipated first closing, Investcorp said in a statement on Thursday.

The statement did not give the size of the fund, but the Financial Times reported on Wednesday it could be as much as $800 million and its first close will be $250 million.

The new fund has also received board approval from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to commit $90 million, the statement said.

It could be joined by other global institutional investors including pension funds, insurance companies, endowments, family offices and private clients, the fund said.

ASIIP aims to participate in the post-COVID-19 economic recovery and reform in countries across the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council and the wider Middle East and North A ..

Investcorp is a global alternative investment manager with around $35.4 billion in assets under management.

source:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/saudi-arabia/saudi-sovereign-fund-pif-to-invest-in-investcorp-aberdeen-infrastructure-fund/articleshow/83393202.cms

Some members of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family are participating in a trial administering China’s Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine to children aged 3-17, the emirate’s media office said.

The trial will monitor the immune response of 900 children “in preparation to vaccinate children in the near future”, Abu Dhabi Media Office said in a Twitter post on Wednesday.

Sheikh Theyab bin Mohammed, a son of the United Arab Emirate’s de facto ruler and Abu Dhabi’s crown prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, accompanied his children, nieces and nephews to participate in the immune bridge study, it said.

The UAE in May approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for emergency use in children aged 12-15. Dubai, the second-largest member of the UAE federation, started inoculating that age group this month.

The UAE, which has among the world’s highest immunisation rates, on Wednesday registered 2,011 new coronavirus infections to take its total to 603,961 cases with 1,738 deaths. It does not provide a breakdown for each of its seven emirates.

The Gulf state led Phase III clinical trials of the vaccine produced by China’s state-owned drugmaker Sinopharm and has started manufacturing it under a joint venture between Sinopharm and Abu Dhabi-based technology company Group 42.

Source:https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/uae/uae-launches-sinopharm-vaccine-trial-for-children-under-18/articleshow/83597158.cms