Essar Group to invest $1.5bln in West Asia

Dubai, Jul 2 (UNI) The Essar Group today announced that it would set up three steel plants in West Asia at a cost of about 1.5 billion dollar as part of its regional expansion plans, a top company official has said.

''The Middle East is a very important part of what we are doing because most of our businesses are very energy centric, steel, power, refining. So we believe we need to have a much bigger presence here,'' Essar Group Director Anshuman Ruia told Gulf News.

Mr Ruia said the company has signed a 50:50 joint venture agreement with state-owned Qatar Steel Company to set up a 1.5 million tonne a year steel plant there.

Essar will also set up a one million tonne steel rolling mill at the Hamriyah Free Zone on the outskirts of Sharjah.

It has also formed a joint venture with pension funds to set up another 1.5 million tonne a year steel plant in Iran.

The group has assets of more than 6 billion dollar in its steel, telecoms, shipping, and power and oil businesses.

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