The Umbrărescu family is reviving the Oțelu Roșu complex, after years of stagnation. The resumption of rebar and wire production is being prepared
Dorinel Umbrărescu, the largest road builder in Romania, restarts the Oțelu Roșu plant and promises to relaunch the production of reinforced concrete for the large infrastructure projects of the UMB Group.
The rehabilitation works at the industrial railway from UMB Oțelu Roșu Photo: video capture
The businessman's family took over the platform through the Eco Wind Power company, following an auction concluded at the amount of almost 142 million lei, a price that also includes procedural expenses.
So, after more than ten years since its closure, the complex is starting to regain its functionality through the first modernization works, writes the economy.
According to the quoted source, the first visible signs of the reactivation of the platform come from the area of the industrial railway. Infrastructure enthusiasts were surprised, in aerial images published on the YouTube channel “Nature and Infrastructure”, sequences filmed with the drone showing the rehabilitation of the factory line.
The restoration of the domestic railway infrastructure is essential for the transport of raw materials and finished products, being also a first indicator that UMB investments are advancing rapidly.
The plans of the group led by Dorinel Umbrărescu aim at the production of ribbed concrete iron and wire, indispensable materials for the large infrastructure projects that UMB is working on throughout the country.
The Oțelu Roșu plant is one of the oldest in the world and has been operating for almost 230 years, being documented for the first time in 1796, during the Habsburg Empire.
In recent decades, the platform passed through the hands of the Russian Mechel group, controlled by Igor Ziuzin, and then a company with Polish and Bessarabian shareholders. In 2012, the business was shut down due to debt, leaving the local community without its main employer and turning a once thriving industrial area into an abandoned space.
The family's UMB group will invest over 300 million euros in Oțelu Roșu and will create, in the first phase, approximately 600 jobs.
