Agha Steel Achieves Important Milestone

Lahore (Muhammad Yasir) The Military Engineering Services (MES) of the Pakistan Army has enlisted Agha Steel Industries Ltd as the manufacturer-cum-supplier of deformed steel bars for its projects.

The Engineer-in-Chief’s branch has already issued the company a provisional certificate of enlistment/registration.“It is a major milestone for us,” Hussain Agha, the young chief executive officer (CEO) of Agha Steel said in a statement.

“We are grateful to the MES for enlisting us as a manufacturer-cum-supplier of quality steel products. God willing our company will come up to their expectations of the military, meet its requirements and help it build Pakistan.”

Agha Steel is the first private sector steel manufacturer employing Italian Electric Arc Furnace technology – a steel recycling furnace and the most accredited and quality based method of manufacturing worldwide as well as the fastest growing technology that companies are adopting today in the private sector in Pakistan.

The company had issued Initial Public Offering (IPO) last month to raise funds to finance its second phase of capacity expansion. The IPO, the third during the current fiscal year, proved a resounding success and was oversubscribed. The IPO consisted of 120 million ordinary shares or 20.83 per cent of the paid up capital of the firm.

In the second phase, the company is bringing a new, disruptive steel rerolling technology, MiDa. The technology is said to be a game changer for the steel industry as it reduces the entire production cycle to just two hours in addition to increasing yield efficiency to over 99 per cent in comparison to Pakistan’s existing standard of 90-91 per cent. Additional benefits will come from energy and time savings as the company’s rerolling capacity will rise to 650,000 ton on completion of the project in June next year from existing 250,000 ton. The firm has steel melting capacity of 400,000 ton.

“MiDa is a disruptive technology that will use an endless casting and rolling procedure. We won’t have to make billets at all unless we have to. This will bring down the entire production cycle — raw material to rebar — to just 2 hours. This is a game changer for us,” Agha said.

“We are expanding our production facility. But it is not to become the largest company. Our real pursuit is to manufacture high quality, diversified steel products in the most efficient manner, using the latest technology available in the world.”