In line with earlier announcements for building a steel plant in Bulgaria , Romania or Ukraine , the Austrian metallurgic company Voest Alpine specified that the planned investment will range from EUR 6bn to EUR 10bn. The upper limit of the investment accounts for about 36% of the Bulgarian GDP for last year. The plant will be located on 1,000 hectares of land and would open at least 10,000 jobs. The planning and the construction of the facility, with annual production capacity of 5mn tons, would take 4 to 5 years. The plant should be completed by the end of 2012. Alpine is considering eight possible locations, two of which in Bulgaria , three in Romania and three in Ukraine , all located at the Black Sea coast. It would narrow the selection to three places by the middle of the year and will conduct a more detailed analysis. 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 . Voest Alpine is one of the strategic partners of the country’s largest steel mill Kremikovtsi, which has capacity to produce 2mn tons of steel annually.