SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) — Brazil's CVRD mining company and South Korea's Dongkuk Steel Mill Co. on Tuesday announced a multibillion-dollar plan to build a steel slab plant in the northeastern Brazilian state of Ceara.
The new joint venture, named Companhia Siderurgica Pecem, involves a steel slab plant to be completed by 2011 that would have initial production capacity of 2.5 million metric tons per year with the later possibility of doubling production.
Investment for the first phase is estimated at $2 billion.
The effort by CVRD, the world's largest iron ore miner, represents another step in its expansion into the steel sector. Companhia de Rio Vale Doce SA also is building a steel plant with Germany's ThyssenKrupp CSA in Rio de Janeiro state and another with China's Baosteel in Espirito Santo state.
Iron ore is the raw ingredient used to make steel.
