Azerbaijan-Kazakhstan HBI plant project valued at $800 million - operatorThe construction of a joint Azerbaijani-Kazakh plant to produce the hot briquetted iron (HBI) is valued at $800 million, the operator Azerbaijan Metal Company (AzMC) said."AzMC has completed the feasibility study for the 2-million-tonne-per-year hot briquetted iron plant, which was prepared by Sinosteel and confirmed the project's technical and economic viability," the company said.The study pegs total capital expenditure at roughly $800 million, up from an earlier estimate of $700 million.At a presentation of the study in Baku on Friday, AzMC and Sinosteel also signed a contract for basic design work. The next phase will cover engineering, procurement and construction (EPC).A significant portion of the investment is expected to come from international credit resources, AzMC said. China's Sinosure and Italy's SACE have been named as partners providing export credit insurance and guarantee support."ING Bank will coordinate financing through export credit agencies together with AzMC. That arrangement was formally sealed with an agreement also signed Friday," the company said.The HBI plant will be the largest link in a three-part production chain spanning from iron ore mining at the Dashkasan deposit to metallurgical raw material production, according to AzMC."The full chain will include iron ore concentrate with iron content above 67%, pellets and HBI.The project's full implementation will contribute about $19 billion to Azerbaijan's GDP and create around 4,000 new jobs across the regions," the company said.The plant is expected to come online in late 2029. It will be built in the Western Industrial Park in Shamkir district, western Azerbaijan, and will receive state support including tax, customs and logistics incentives, as well as preferential natural gas tariffs.The facility will use Energiron Zero-Reformer (ZR) technology developed by Italy's Tenova, which offers lower energy consumption and a significantly smaller carbon footprint than traditional production methods.AzMC was established last year by Azerbaijan's Dashkasan Iron Ore and Kazakhstan's Fonte GreenMet Investments Fund OEIC Limited to finance, design, build and operate the HBI plant. (ICE ALMATY)

Fonte notizia: INTERFAX