Oman’s Shumookh Investment plans $400 million steel plant

Muscat, April 21 - Shumookh Investment and Services (SIS), the investment arm of the wholly Omani government-owned Public Establishment for Industrial Estates (Madayn), says it plans to set up a major steel project in the Sultanate with an investment totalling around $400 million. The project is proposed to be developed by the Omani Brazilian Co for Steel Products LLC, a joint venture that includes Shumookh Investment as a 50 per cent equity partner. Capacity is envisioned at roughly 400,000 tonnes per annum of pig iron or steel billets earmarked primarily for the construction industry and downstream value-addition. Bearing the trade name ‘BrOman’, the project is proposed to be established on a turnkey basis within the industry city of Madayn either in Suhar or Sur. Suhar Industrial City, and the adjoining Sohar Port and Freezone, already host a number of mega and medium-scale iron and steel-related ventures that have collectively helped put Oman on the global map of steel producing nations. Significantly, the proposed steel plant is part of a substantial portfolio of investments planned by Shumookh across a number of sectors spanning real estate, tourism and hospitality, camp accommodation, logistics, infrastructure, facilities management, oil refining and petrochemicals, fisheries and fund management, among other areas. An overview of these investments was presented by a high-level official at an investment forum held in the city recently. In his presentation, Salah Abdullah al Zakwani, Chief Investment Officer (CIO), said the proposed projects and initiatives are in line with Shumookh’s broader mandate to support the development of infrastructure projects that add to the investment appeal of Madayn’s industrial cities. Notable is an ambitious plan to establish a world-scale refinery and petrochemicals complex in Sur Industrial City in Oman’s South Al Sharqiyah Governorate. The proposed refinery and petrochemical complex is expected to have a processing capacity of 300,000 barrels per day, surpassing that of the 230,000 bpd Duqm Refinery project currently in the early stages of implementation in the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Duqm on Oman’s Wusta coast. The cost of the proposed mega venture in Sur is a ballpark $10 billion.