Qatar Steel’s total direct reduced (DR) iron production has risen from 800,000 tonnes to 2.3 million tonnes per year (tpy) following the commissioning of its second DR plant.

Adopting the Midrex technology, the new plant is equipped to annually produce 1.5 tpy of both cold DR iron and hot briquetted iron simultaneously.
Qatar Steel reported it sent in September and October DR iron shipments of 20,000 tonnes from its jetty in Mesaieed to Al-Ezz Flat Steel in Ain Sukhna, Egypt.
As well as the new DR plant, new projects that began production this year were an electric arc furnace of capacity 600,000 tpy and a deformed bar rolling mill of 700,000 tpy.
Meanwhile, Qatar Steel’s Dubai operation has obtained a certificate of approval from UK Cares, the UK-based certification authority for reinforcing steels, for complying with the latter’s product specifications.
Qatar Steel Dubai said it could now use UK Cares accreditation mark on its products.
The certificate was recently presented to Qatar Steel general manager Sheikh Nasser bin Hamad al-Thani by UK Cares executive director Ben Bowsher.
Qatar Steel Dubai FZE was set up in 2003 to meet the growing demand for high quality steel wire rod products within the GCC and international markets.
It has two facilities at Dubai’s Jebel Ali free Zone – a wire rod mill of 240,000 tpy and a rebar mill of 50,000 tpy.  The rebar mill capacity is now being stepped up to 300,000 tpy.
Qatar Steel has strengthened its position on the raw materials front by picking up a 25 per cent stake in Bahrain-based Gulf Industrial Investment Company (GIIC), which produces and supplies DR billets-grade iron oxide pellets to DRI plants across the globe.
And in another development, Australia’s Sphere Investments said recently that Qatar Steel had confirmed its purchase of a 15 per cent interest in the Guelb el Aouj iron ore project in Mauritania, West Africa. Qatar Steel has also received board approval to buy an additional 34.9 per cent share in the project for a total consideration of $375 million for the combined 49.9 per cent stake.
The Guelb el Aouj project is equally owned by Sphere and the Mauritanian state-owned iron ore company Societe Nationale Industrielle et Miniere, or SNIM.
Sphere is a West Africa-focused iron ore-company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. The Guelb el Auoj project is its flagship operation in Mauritania. Qatar Steel has purchased a stock investment of 10 per cent in Sphere.
Production has begun at Qatar Steel’s joint venture project in Bahrain, United Stainless Steel Company, which manufactures cold rolled stainless steel coils and sheets.
Qatar Steel’s consolidated net income in 2006 was QR534 million against QR387 million in the previous year.