Bahrain’s first steel reinforcement bar mill has begun operations and is currently serving the local market.

Universal Rolling (Unirol), owned by Bahraini and Saudi businessmen and International Investment Bank, has an annual capacity of 200,000 tonnes, but is now working at less than full capacity.
The mill, which took four years to build, has utilised state-of-the-art technology in steel rolling and manufacturing in addition to the latest quality control systems, managing director Mazen Almahroos said.
It has an in-house laboratory in order to guarantee the highest level of quality and compliance with British Standard BS 4449:97 grade 460, and American Standard ASTM A615 grade 60.
“The commencement of production at our plant comes after big efforts made jointly by our team of Bahrainis and expats in addition to the support received from governmental agencies that made our success possible,” said Almahroos.
“This new industrial entity will reflect positively on the lives of Bahrainis working with us, and on the real estate sector specifically, and the local economy as a whole,” he said.
“Currently the factory is running at only a portion of its 200,000 tonnes per annum production capacity, with capability of covering a huge part of the local demand of the kingdom for this strategically important product.”
The plant now employs 130 people but the company has plans to train Bahrainis to enable them to assume a bigger role.
Discussing quality, Almahroos said rebar samples were examined by the Bahraini Works Ministry and conformity to internationally recognised standards had been confirmed. Unirol products received approval for Works Ministry and general government projects.
The new plant ensures that Bahrain’s construction projects will not suffer for lack of supplies as had been the case recently.
“We would like to see Bahrain more dependent on itself rather than on imports especially when it comes to our development projects,” Almahroos said.
Unirol has already supplied some high-profile projects in Bahrain.