The largest share of rolled steel imports by the Georgian market is rebar, so the new plant will cover domestic needs

Georgian steel trading company Georgia Metal LLC has started test production of rebar at a new rolling mill in the municipality of Zestafoni. This is reported by Kallanish with reference to the investor’s data.

The plant is built on a 10,000 sq m land plot, of which 5,000 sq m are covered. The nominal capacity of the plant will be 500 thousand tons of rebar with a diameter of 8-32 mm per year, and commercial production is scheduled to start in November-December this year.

The production lines installed at the new rolling mill were dismantled several years ago from the company’s facility in Beirut, Lebanon. In the second quarter of 2025, the company plans to install an electric arc furnace with an annual capacity of 400 thousand tons of steel.

Georgia imports almost 500 thousand tons of rebar annually. The plant in the Zestafoni municipality will be able to cover the needs of the local market, and the surplus will be exported to the European Union under the Euro-1 scheme,” the investor comments.

At the same time, according to UN Comtrade, Georgia imported 229.48 thousand tons of rebar last year (+36.8% y/y), 167.72 thousand tons in 2022 (+57.8% y/y), 106.28 thousand tons in 2021 (+7.6% y/y), 115.09 thousand tons in 2020 (-0.7% y/y), and 123.85 thousand tons in 2019.

In total, in 2023, the country imported 450.42 thousand tons of rolled steel products (long/flat), up 34.8% compared to 2022. The largest share was accounted for by rebar, coated flat products – 80.8 thousand tons (+25.7% y/y), and hot-rolled flat products – 48.24 thousand tons (+0.03% y/y).

As GMK Center reported earlier, in 2023, Georgia reduced steel production by 16.3% compared to 2022, to 128 kt. With the launch of an electric arc furnace at Georgia Metal’s Zestafoni plant, the country’s annual steel production could rise to around 500 kt.