After being delayed by the pandemic, SteelAsia Manufacturing Corp., the Philippines’ leading steel producer, said the country’s first steel beams and sheet piles manufacturing plant in Lemery, Batangas is expected to start operations in 2023.
SteelAsia President Benjamin Yao said construction of the two production lines –steelmaking and steel section rolling – was suspended due to the Covid 19 lockdown. It broke ground in 2019.
Once operational, Yao said, the facility will create at least 1,500 direct jobs and thousands more from ancillary industries and businesses, and have a capacity of some 1.1 million tons per year.
It will produce products used in infrastructure and heavy construction including H/I beams, sheet piles, heavy angles and channels that are all currently being imported.
The world’s leading manufacturer of sections equipment, SMS of Germany, and one of the pioneers in reheating furnaces, Fives, formerly Stein Huertey of France, provided the design and supplied the equipment for the manufacturing plant.
“The Lemery Works steel plant is of national significance as it will reduce our reliance on imports for important steel products needed for the government’s ambitious infrastructure program,” said Yao.
It will also put Batangas on the map as one of the country’s top steel hubs. The plant will recycle steel scrap which is currently exported.
“When you export and process our resources abroad, it is creating jobs in another country. With this new plant, we will recycle our steel scrap here and generate local jobs,” said Yao.
SteelAsia is on a mission to create regional industrial hubs and at the same time make steel products easily accessible and therefore more affordable to all parts of the country.
So far, it has plants in Davao, Cebu, Misamis Oriental, Batangas, and Bulacan. It is also putting up plants in Compostela Cebu, Tarlac and Quezon Province.