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According to the World Steel Association, a non-profit organization headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, Ezz Steel, a leading steel producer led by Egyptian businessman Ahmed Ezz, has topped the list of steel producers in North Africa and the Middle East (MENA) for the second consecutive year.
According to World Steel, Ezz Steel ranks first in MENA, with a total output of 5.14 million tonnes. It is closely followed by Saudi Arabia’s Hadeed, with an output of 4.86 million tonnes, and Emirates Steel, which produced 3.02 million tonnes of steel in 2021.
The Belgium-based non-profit organization revealed that the Cairo-based steel producer achieved a record export sale of $1.3 billion in 2021, supported by a 12-percent increase in crude output.
To increase its production capacity beyond 7 million tonnes per year, the leading steel company has invested in a new 1.6-million-tonne-per-annum melt shop at the Ezz Flat Steel (EFS) complex in Suez, which is set to open in the fourth quarter of this year.
Ezz, who founded Ezz Steel in 1994 and owns a 60.7-percent stake in the company, or 329,816,198 shares, is one of the wealthiest men in the North African country and on the Egyptian Exchange.
In the first quarter of 2022, Ezz Steel’s revenue rose by 38.1 percent from EGP13.5 billion ($724.7 million) to EGP18.64 billion ($1 billion), boosted by sustained growth in steel prices and sales, while its profit increased by 2.4-percent from EGP1.187 billion ($63.9 million) in the first quarter of 2021 to EGP1.217 billion ($65.5 million).
The impact of higher operating expenses on earnings, combined with a foreign currency exchange loss of EGP1.13 billion ($60 million), led to the slower growth in earnings during the period.
