Stemcor plant at Kalinga Nagar

The project, a 100 per cent subsidiary of Stemcor, would be the trading organisation's first manufacturing project in India. As part of the project, an iron ore beneficiation plant would be set up in, which would be connected to the pellet plant by a slurry pipeline.

Besides the pellet plant, Stemcor was financing a cold rolling project of Uttam Galva Steels and had minority stakes in Electrosteel Castings, Mesco and Satvahana Ispat.

William Attenborough, managing director, Middle East-South Asia added that India was an extremely important market for Stemcor. The Stemcor team was in Kolkata to brainstorm over the company's India strategy and possible synchronization with its Chinese operations.

Last year, Stemcor exported 350,000 tons of finished steel, 0.5 million tons of iron ore fines and pellets and imported around 600,000 tons of coke.

Gerard P E Craggs, managing director, Stemcor (SEA) Pte Ltd and director, Stemcor Holdings Limited, pointed out that the company's priority was trading.

However, the recent export duty on steel exports has caught Stemcor by surprise. Attenborough said, "It's too early to comment on the situation and it is being assessed."

He explained that it was unlikely that the duty could be passed on to the consumers as the sales were through international contracts. Moreover, Craggs said, some of the countries were facing growing inflation.

Globally, the $8 billion Stemcor deals with around 10 million tons of steel and 10 million tons of raw materials.