On April 7, Indonesian state-owned steel maker PT Krakatau Steel announced that it plans to sign an agreement with South Korean steel giant POSCO in May this year to set up a joint venture company for the production of steel plate. According to the company's statement, the the process for the establishment of the new company will be completed in June, due to the necessary government approvals.
The proposed joint venture will build a steel plant which is expected to annually produce two million metric tons of plate with width of up to 4 meters, beginning from 2013.
With the commissioning of the new plant, PT Krakatau Steel's annual plate production capacity will reach 4 million metric tons.
The steel plates produced, which will be used by the shipbuilding industry, will be marketed to Vietnam, South Korea, China and Singapore.
As SteelOrbis previously reported, POSCO had announced on December 2 that it had reached a preliminary agreement with PT Krakatau Steel to build an integrated steel mill in Indonesia.