Steel MNCs seek pie in Tatas' Orissa project

International steel majors Arcelor, Nippon and Posco have approached Tata Steel to participate in its 6 million tonne steel project in Orissa.

T Mukherjee, deputy managing director, Tata Steel said, "International steel companies Arcelor, Nippon and Posco have approached us to partner with us for our Orissa steel proejct. However, Tata Steel has not taken any decision on this matter as our priority is to finalise the project with the Orissa government first."

While he did not specify the nature of partnership, he did not rule out the possibility of an equity partnership.

Tata Steel has announced an investment of Rs 15,000 crore for the setting up a greenfield steel plant near Duburi and is in negotiations with the Orissa government for signing a formal agreement. The steel plant would produce billets and slabs.

The company plans to increase the capacity of this plant to 10-12 million tonne in the long term. "Eventually, we would like to increase the capacity of the Orissa plant to 10-12 million tonne," Mukherjee said.

Tata Steel is also finalising a location for the 4 million tonne pellet plant to support its upcoming 2.4 million tonne hot-rolled coil steel plant in Bangladesh.

"We will be setting up a 4 million tonne pellet plant for supplying to our hot-rolled coil plant in Bangladesh. However, we have yet not finalised whether it will be in Bangladesh or in India," Mukherjee said.

The Tata group has announced an investment of $2 billion for its Bangladesh project. The group is looking at setting up a 2.4 million tonne steel plant, a 1000 MW power plant and a one million tonne urea plant in the country.