Voest Alpine mulls steel production at Black Sea coast

The Austrian company Voest Alpine is considering construction of a steel plant on the Black Sea coast. Other possible locations besides Bulgaria are Romania , Ukraine and Turkey , final decision is expected by the middle of next year. The plant should start operations by the end of 2012 or early 2013. Alpine plans to expand its global production capacity to 11mn tons annually from 5.1mn tons at present, including through investments in its mill in Linz . The profit of Voest Alpine grew by 46.5% y/y to EUR 905mn in H1 on sales increase of 41% y/y to EUR 4.7bn respectively. Voest Alpine is one of the strategic partners of the country’s largest steel mill Kremikovtsi.