Reuters reported that project delays due to political unrest in Nnorth Africa and Middle East will slow down sales and profit growth at Italy's steel plant maker Danieli and hit its order book in 2011.

Danieli expects revenues at EUR 2.8 billion to EUR 3.0 billion and net profit at EUR 150 million to EUR 200 million in its 2010/2011 financial year, in line with previous year.

Mr Gianpietro Benedetti chairman & CEO of Danieli said that "The results could have been much better but we had to suspend some works in Egypt, in the Gulf area because of the political situation there. The Gulf area has stopped but it should recover in the next 3 to 5 months if nothing else happens there."

He said that Danieli's order book which stood at about EUR 3.3 billion in the first half of the group's financial year, is expected to fall to about EUR 3 billion at the end of its financial year in June 2011 because of the delays.

Mr Benedetti said that in particular, Danieli has put on hold two projects in Egypt to build steel plants with a total capacity of 2 million tonnes and had briefly suspended a third project which has already been resumed.

He said that the group has also suspended for about 10 days its nearly completed work at a 2.5 million tonnes steel plant in Japan it has been building for Tokyo Steel after the devastating earthquake in the country.

Turning to other steel markets, Benedetti said Russia, China, India, Brazil and Mexico have slowed down growth but were willing to go ahead, the US market was waking up after the economic crisis, while Europe has stopped.

Mr Benedetti said that on its domestic market, Danieli is considering a EUR 200 to EUR 250 million investment into its Italian unit ABS to boost quality of special steels it produces.

(Sourced from www.reuters.com)