Indian and Australian companies to sign agreement for potential steel plant in India

India's NMDC and NLC and Australia's Environmental Clean Technologies will be signing an agreement in Canberra that could lead to a new steel plant at Tamil Nadu. The A$35 million ($26.2 million) master project agreement will support India's steel industry. It includes a research and development project which will use "technologies aimed at lower cost, lower emission iron and steel production utilising lower grade or waste iron ore and low-rank coal resources. The pilot plant will use ACT's Matmor technology to produce 2 mt/hour of steel. Matmor is a lignite-based primary iron making technology capable of replacing metallurgical coal and high-grade lump iron ore with lower-cost alternative raw materials. The agreement also provides framework for a A$300 million commercial-scale integrated steelmaking facility with the notional production capacity of 500,000 mt/year of finished steel billet.