ALMATY, KAZAKHSTAN – Kazakhstan threatened Thursday to ban global steel giant ArcelorMittal from operating in the Central Asian country after another fatal accident at a factory belonging to the Luxemburg-based company.
Kazakhstan’s infrastructure and industry minister Kairbek Uskenbayev said “tough decisions” were being made against the company, after a worker was killed Thursday in a factory in the Kazakh town of Termitau.
“This raises the question of whether (ArcelorMittal) will be able to work in Kazakhstan or not,” Uskenbayev said, according to the Kazinform news agency.
He said the government had created several commissions to study the company’s safety measures.
“The results will be published soon,” he said.
His comments came after the death of a worker on Thursday at ArcelorMittal Termitau, a factory belonging to the steel giant and named after the city it is based in.
The company earlier said the worker had died “after an accident”.
Five other miners were killed last month in a blast at a mine operated by ArcelorMittal in the same region.
ArcellorMittal, the world’s second largest steel producer, operates a dozen factories and mines in this polluted industrial Kazakh region.
Kazakhstan has in the past imposed fines on ArcelorMittal for non-compliance with ecological standards.
A government commission last month said the company was “100 percent responsible” for the miner deaths.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, re-elected last month, has denounced the “systemic character” of accidents involving the company.
“Since 2006, more than 20 accidents cost the lives of over 100 of our co-citizens,” he said last month.
Kazakhstan is Central Asia’s largest economy.
ArcelorMittal’s profits fell in the third quarter of this year due to the energy crisis and inflation in Europe, as well as the global steel market suffering from a slowdown in Chinese growth.
