Kazakhstan's Qarmet to build a steel galvanising line with Belgium's John Cockerill as part of a $3.5bn upgrade

Qarmet, the Kazakh steelmaker formerly known as ArcelorMittal Temirtau, continues to carry out a $3.5 billion programme to modernise its production facilities, and one of its projects is being built together with Belgian engineering company John Cockerill Industry Metals, inbusiness.kz reports, citing Business Insider.

The project is a new complex for continuous hot-dip galvanising and polymer coating of steel strip: Belgium's John Cockerill is supplying the equipment and technology, with investment in the project put at $113 million. Once the line launches, planned for December 2027, output of galvanised steel at the plant is expected to rise from the current 632,000 to 825,000 tonnes a year, and polymer-coated steel from 118,000 to 262,000 tonnes.

The rest of Qarmet's major modernisation projects involve Chinese partners: a section-rolling mill with CERI ($87 million, launching in 2026), coke batteries with ACRE ($688 million, November 2027) and a casting-and-rolling complex designed by CISDI using Italian Danieli technology ($600 million, August 2028). The company says the modernisation is meant to shift production from simply expanding volumes toward more technologically advanced, higher-value steel for the automotive industry, petrochemicals and other sectors.

The Qarmet–John Cockerill partnership is not new to the Chamber: at the 4th session of the Kazakhstan–Belgium Business Council in October, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev already cited it as an example of industrial cooperation between Kazakhstan and Belgium.

Why this matters for Chamber members. The project shows that Belgian engineering firms are winning contracts to modernise Kazakh steelmaking technology on a par with Chinese suppliers, not just supplying one-off equipment. For Belgian and Dutch machine-building companies, it's a signal that large Kazakh industrial groups are ready to commit significant sums specifically to Western galvanising and metal-processing technology.