Steel producer Ozmert Algeria, a Turkish investment based in Algeria, has announced that it has made significant progress in its new investment in its subsidiary Sarl Tunch. 80 percent of the construction and assembly processes of the coal-based direct reduced iron (DRI) and ore pelletizing plant have been completed. The plant, located in Tebesa, will have an annual capacity of 500,000 mt in the first phase. The company plans to commission the plant and start test production in November this year.
At the end of last year, the Algerian Ministry of Mines had allocated a coal mine in Bechar to Sarl Tunch in order to meet the coal needs of the given DRI plant. Stating that they had been producing and stocking the coal required for the DRI plant for about four months, the company added that it aims to extract an annual150,000 mt of coal from the mine.