Harsco Corp.’s MultiServ mill services division has signed a 12-year agreement to support one of China's newest and largest steel operations, Ningbo Iron & Steel. The contract, valued at more than $50 million over its term, is one of MultiServ’s largest contracts to date in China.
The Ningbo works is a major, all-new integrated steel plant now being launched in Zhejiang Province, as that region seeks to establish itself as a new iron and steel industrial base along the southeastern coastline of China, near Shanghai. The mill has recently begun blast furnace operations with an initial annual production capacity in the range of two million tonnes, and is expected to ramp up to full capacity of approximately six million tonnes within the next three years, making it one of the 20 largest steel mills in China. The plant is a four-way joint venture of three Chinese steel producers and a Chinese investment firm. The majority shareholder, the nearby HangZhou Iron and Steel Works, is MultiServ's largest customer in China.
MultiServ will operate and manage Ningbo's scrapyard, handling the receipt and stocking of scrap material, accurately loading materials to the mill's prescribed menus, and transporting the material on a real-time basis to the mill's steelmaking furnace. MultiServ's operations will include a computerized scrap-management system that can be expanded in the future to meet the mill's expected production increases.
"This opportunity to affiliate ourselves directly from plant start-up with a modern, world-class operation such as Ningbo fits perfectly into our strategic objectives for the China region," said Harsco President-designee and CEO of the MultiServ division, Geoffrey D. H. Butler. "We will continue to prudently address our opportunities for serving China's largest and strongest steel producers, in parallel with our continuing pursuit of the many opportunities we see in other regions of the world."
Although China ranks as the world's number-one steel producer and consumer, its steel industry remains highly fragmented, with approximately 1000 steel-producing companies yet only some 50 mills with annual production of more than two million tons.
Harsco's MultiServ mill services division serves the world's leading steel and metals companies as an integral, on-site service partner at some 170 mills in over 30 countries. Core services include integrated materials handling, semi-finished and finished product management, and environmental recycling and by-product management.
Harsco Corp. is one of the world's leading diversified industrial services companies, serving major customers in the non-residential construction, steel and metals, energy and railway industries. The company posted 2006 revenues of $3.4 billion and employs approximately 21,500 people worldwide.