MultiServ Lands Large China Contract

Harsco Corp. announced that its MultiServ mill services division has signed a 12-year agreement valued at more than $50 million over its term to support Ningbo Iron & Steel.

Salvatore Fazzolari, Harsco's president and CFO , said the new contract is a further reflection of Harsco's continuing strategic execution. "As underscored by this award, Harsco's global growth strategies include steady, targeted expansion in the Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Middle East and Africa sectors to further complement our already-strong presence throughout Europe and North America," said Fazzolari.

The Ningbo works is a new integrated steel plant being launched in Zhejiang Province. The mill has recently begun blast furnace operations with an initial annual production capacity in the range of two million tons, and is expected to ramp up to full capacity of about six million tons within the next three years, making it one of the top 20 largest steel mills in China. The plant is a four-way joint venture of three Chinese steel producers and a Chinese investment firm. The majority shareholder is the nearby HangZhou Iron and Steel Works, MultiServ's largest customer in China.

MultiServ has been selected to operate and manage Ningbo's scrap yard, handling the receipt and stocking of scrap material, loading materials to the mill's prescribed menus, and transporting the material on a real-time basis to the mill's steelmaking furnace. MultiServ's operations will include a computerized scrap management system capable of expansion in line with the mill's expected production increases.

"We will continue to prudently address our opportunities for serving China's largest and strongest steel producers, in parallel with our continuing pursuit of the many opportunities we see in other regions of the world," said Geoffrey Butler, Harsco president-designee and CEO of the MultiServ division.