British group Liberty House, the future owner of ArcelorMittal Galati, the biggest steel plant in Romania, plans to increase its production by 1 million tons by 2021/2022.

The group also plans to invest in the primary and rolling facilities at the plant, Liberty House CEO Jon Bolton said in a meeting with deputy prime minister Viorel Stefan on Friday,October 26.

The two officials also spoke about investments in education, research and design as well as exploring the potential for manufacturing new high value steel products.

“Liberty currently manufactures products that could be added to the Galati offering and support the current Romanian development plans. These include oil and gas pipelines, rail and specialty steels that Liberty supplies to the aerospace and defense industries,” according to a Liberty House press release.

Liberty, part of the GFG Alliance group of companies owned by British-Indian investor Sanjeev Gupta, has reached an agreement to buy four steel plants in Europe put up for sale by ArcelorMittal group. The deal is subject to approval by the European Commission.

ArcelorMittal Galati, which has about 5,600 employees, has a production capacity of 3 million tons of steel per year but its average output in recent years has been of about 2 million tons per year.

editor@romania-insider.com