ArcelorMittal Looks to Make Up Lost Time

ArcelorMittal SA , the world's largest steel producer, is looking at ways to make up for lost time in the expansion of its Liberia iron ore project after the Ebola outbreak in the region, the company's head of iron ore said on Monday.

ArcelorMittal (MT) will announce a new time frame for the project in the first quarter of next year, Kleber Silva, Arcelor's head of iron ore, told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in Rio de Janeiro.

The company had originally been targeting an expansion to 15 million tonnes by December 2015, from 5 million tonnes this year.

"With the problem of Ebola the project was delayed," Silva said.

"We are now assessing the impact of this and what we can do in parallel to increase the efficiency of the work and get as close as possible to our original target."

ArcelorMittal currently produces 70 million tonnes per year of iron ore.

Reporting by Stephen Eisenhammer and Marta Nogueira