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With most of the value added steel products in India being imported, one of the leading steel makers in the country - Essar Steel - has turned its focus on making value added products to cater to the emerging demand from defence sector.
"Defence is an important sector, where the company has entered in a big way. India currently imports 100,000 tonnnes of steel annual to meet defence requirement. Essar Steel's efforts are towards reducing imports and make the country self-reliant in critical sector like defence," said, M Venkatraman, senior vice-president, head- R&D, Product Development & Application Engineering, Essar Steel.
He added that this is line with the government's plan to indigenise defence sector production. In fact, Essar Steel has in recent months won an order from the Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory (DMRL), Hyderabad to develop special Quenched and Tempered (QT) with a strength level of 1700 MPa (megapasacl) for use in latest version of battle tanks.
According to the company, Defence uses special advanced steels for its warships, battle tanks and other military equipment. Most of these products are imported by the company.
Essar Steel's increased focus on value added products could be gauged from the fact that the newly launched value added products by the company now form the 50 per cent of the company's total product basket. "We will focus on value added products in niche segment.
"Automotive industry is the biggest consumer of steel. The company has also intensified its Research and Development (R&D) efforts," Venkatraman stated.
The company is also open to investing in R&D for special segments. "The thrust to develop high value import-substitute products that conform to the international standards. R&D efforts over the year have enabled the company to become versatile steel producer with capability to produce special steel for all the premier segments such as automobile, boiler and pressure vessels, shipbuilding, defence and yellow goods," he added. Essar Steel currently produces over 300 grades of steel.
It may be mentioned here that the company last month commissioned its pallet complex in Odisha. The company also intends to invest Rs 1,500 crore over the next year and plans to complete the second phase of a six million tonnes per annum (mtpa) pellet plant at Paradeep in Odisha. It will also take up a 1.35 mtpa coke oven plant at Hazira, Gujarat.
