Province gives big steel plans the chop

The move was made at a meeting between Ba Ria-Vung Tau People’s Committee chairman Tran Minh Sanh and the local steel project inspection team.

Sanh agreed with the inspection team’s proposal to revoke the licences, which have an accumulative manufacturing capacity of 3.7 million tonnes of rolled steel and 1.5 million tonnes of billets per year.

According to Tran Thanh Binh, deputy director of the province’s Planning and Investment Department, the majority of the projects were foreign-invested and to be  located in industrial parks. The delayed projects have not been named so far.

A senior official from Ba Ria-Vung Tau Industrial Park Management Board, said: “It will take some more time for investors to raise their voices, explaining the delays and schedules.”.

The province currently has 18 steel projects, including 10 built out of the national steel development master plan for 2007-2015, already approved by the government. 

The 18 projects have an accumulative capacity of 3.75 million tonnes of billets, one million tonnes of building steel and more than 10 million tonnes of rolled steel per annum.

Eight projects have been put into operation so far, two running on trials and two under construction, including the three million-tonne capacity Posco-Vietnam project and the 105,000-tonne Baw Hang Steel Vietnam project.

The other four projects have not begun construction, while the remaining two recently received investment licences, including the 1.6 million tonne steel milling project backed by China Steel Corporation, Sumitomo Corporation and other investors, which got licence in the middle of this year.

The official, however, revealed that China Steel Corporation’s was not on the list of projects to be revoked although the investors had not fixed the date for starting construction.

According to the master plan, Ba Ria-Vung Tau would have eight steel projects by 2015 that were able to produce 900,000 tonnes of billets and 6.74 million tonnes of rolled steel.

The inspection team concluded that the 10 unscheduled projects supplied an additional 2.85 million tonnes of billets and 4.4 million tonnes of rolled steel.

Excessive investment in steel projects in Ba Ria-Vung Tau have resulted in  serious power shortages, and air and water pollution.