Qatar Steel Company (Qasco) has signed an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract with Italian firm Danieli & C Officine Meccaniche S PA to set up an iron and steel smelter, Qasco announced.

The plant, which will have a production capacity of 600 tonnes of iron bars per year, will cost 100 milion euros, a news release.
Ali bin Hassan Al Morakhi, commercial manager of Qasco, and the vice-chairman of the Italian firm signed the contract.
The smelter unit is expected to be completed by 2006.  It will increase the plant’s production capacity to 1.6 million tonnes per year (tpy) from the present 1.2 million tonnes of molten steel.
Earlier this year, Qasco, which is fully owned by Industries Qatar, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Essar Global Limited to build a new steel plant that can annually produce 4 million tonnes of iron.
 The new plant will be built at Mesaieed Industrial City at an estimated cost of $1.25 billion and is expected to come on-line in the first half of 2008. According to the agreement, Essar will provide high-grade iron ore pellets, the technology for manufacture and professional management to set up and manage the plant. Essar Constructions Ltd. will be the EPC contractor for this project.
Qatar is emerging as a prominent player in the steel industry. “Our reputation for high-quality steel is undisputed and we are determined to create new benchmarks in steel quality,” said Sheikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Thani, director and general manager of Qasco.
Essar Group has its head quarters in India and has an asset base of over $4.4 billion. The group has interests in a wide range of sectors including steel, shipping, power, oil, construction and telecommunication. Essar Steel produces some of the world’s finest quality steel at its 2.4 million tpy port-based, fully integrated plant at Hazira in Western India and other downstream facilities in India and Indonesia.
Also recently, Qasco announced the signing of a long-term contract for the purchase of iron ore pellets with Itabira Rio Doce Company Limited (ITACO), a wholly owned subsidiary of Brazilian company Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD), for  2.66 million tonnes from the year 2005 to 2010.
Qatar Steel Company was established in 1974 as the first integrated steel plant in the Arabian Gulf region. It manufactures billets and reinforced bars. The facilities include a DR plant, electric arc furnace, continuous casting and a rolling mill.
In late February of this year, Qasco had announced the signing of an agreement with Kobe Steel Japan to build a new direct reduction plant, which can annually produce 1.5 million tonnes of iron.
According to the agreement, the new plant, coming on line in the first half of 2007, will be designed to annually produce either 750,000 tonnes of direct reduction iron and 750,000 tons of hot bricketed iron or 1.5 million tonnes of direct reduction iron.