Africa’s biggest steelmaker, ArcelorMittal South Africa, is considering ways of securing sufficient power supplies to allow it to complete an expansion of its Newcastle plant in South Africa, including a new blast furnace to boost annual capacity.
While ArcelorMittal South Africa is committed to expanding the plant by 2011, it doesn’t know how it will supply the mill with power, CEO Nku Nyembezi-Heita says.
South Africa is short of power after the government delayed giving state electricity utility Eskom permission to expand for four years. Eskom has limited power for industrial users, including ArcelorMittal’s steel mills, to 90% of normal supply and insists shortages will remain until at least 2012.
The Vanderbijlpark-based company, 52% owned by ArcelorMittal, plans to install a new blast furnace at the plant in KwaZulu-Natal province to boost annual capacity to three million tonnes from two million tonnes. The mill produces steel used in construction, such as billets, bars and sections and a new blast furnace would provide increased industrial gas demand for gases such as oxygen, a significant element in steel production.
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