Vienna  - Austrian steelmaker voestalpine AG announced Thursday it would defer indefinitely a decision to build a steel factory on the Black Sea, citing the uncertain business outlook.

The company was planning to double its production capacity by building a plant in Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey or the Ukraine, which would be capable of turning out some
5 million tons of steel per year.

As part of freezing the project, voestalpine abandoned the process of securing a potential site in the Romanian port town of Constanta, the steelmaker said in a statement.

Already in October, voestalpine announced it would defer a decision to 2009.

"The decision has now been postponed indefinitely due to global economic slowdown and the recessive development to be anticipated in Europe," the statement said Thursday.

Voestalpine has said in the past weeks it would throttle production by up to 5 per cent, lay off temporary workers and shut down its plant in the Austrian town of Linz for two weeks over the Christmas holidays. (dpa)