Odisha willing to offer land for SAIL-ArcelorMittal steel plant

The Odisha government yesterday said it is inviting SAIL-ArcelorMittal JV to set up an automotive grade steel plant in the state as ample land was available there. Steel Authority of India Limited recently responding to the state's request wrote a letter to Odisha Principal Secretary, Sanjeev Chopra, saying they would keep the eastern state in mind while zeroing in on the location for the proposed steel plant. SAIL has a steel plant in Rourkela with 4.5 million tonnes of Hot Metal and 4.2 Million Tonnes of Crude Steel per annum capacity. SAIL and ArcelorMittal had in May, 2015 entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to explore the possibility of setting up an auto-grade steel manufacturing facility under a joint venture in India. The proposed JV will construct a cold rolling mill and other downstream finishing facilities in India, touted as one of the fastest-growing automotive markets in the world with production expected to double between 2014 and 2020, from 3.6 million units to 7.3 million units. In May last year, an inter-ministerial group (IMG) had reviewed the progress of MoU that aims to set up an estimated Rs 5,000-crore joint venture (JV) plant to produce auto-grade steel in the country.