UAE's Emirates Steel Certified to Produce Nuclear Project Rebar

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Written by Richard Finlayson, Senior International Editor for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The steel industry in the Middle East continues to progress both in terms of production capacity and in the technology applied to produce new steel products. The only integrated steel plant in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Emirates Steel Industries (ESI) (Abu Dhabi), has been certified to produce concrete reinforcing bar (rebar) for use in nuclear plants.

ESI has met the necessary quality standards and has been awarded a quality system certificate (QSC) by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). This certification shows that the rebar products meet the established technological requirements of ASME's nuclear standards in production, safety, testing, inspections and control of measurement devices.

The company is only the fourth rebar manufacturer globally to attain this certification and the first within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region.

"The ASME certificate and the implementation of our Nuclear Quality System program will enable us to produce and supply our products to companies involved in nuclear activities," said ESI chairman Suhail Al Ameri. "We expect that the nuclear market is going to be a growing market for the use of rebar. With this issuance of a QSC to our company, we are now well positioned to service that growing market."

Preparatory groundwork for the UAE's first nuclear power plant at Braqa is under way, with the pouring of the concrete basemat scheduled in December. In a $20 billion deal announced in December 2009, the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) selected a South Korean consortium led by Korea Electric Power Company (KEPCO) to build four APR-1000 reactors. The first reactor is scheduled to be brought online in 2017. Further reactors could be ordered by the UAE as power demand is forecast to grow from the current 16,000 megawatts (MW) to 40,000 MW by 2020.

Other Middle East countries, including Saudi Arabia and Jordan, are planning nuclear projects.

ESI was established in 2001 and is a wholly owned subsidiary of the General Holding Corporation. It currently has a finished product capacity of 3 million tons annually.

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