Essar group is looking to set up a steel plant in Odisha as big infrastructure growth and low steel capacities are seen propelling India into a bull market for the metal.
Essar Minmet India Ltd, a newly formed company, is doing a feasibility study for an 8 mn t steel plant, according to sources who are observers of the project.
“It is a concept… they are contemplating a steel plant,” said one of the sources. “Feasibility studies are currently going on.”
In November, the Odisha government approved the company’s proposal for building a 14 mnt iron ore beneficiation plant, a 14 mn t pellet plant and a slurry pipeline, an investment of INR 6,650 crore.
The government is in the process of allotting land in Keonjhar and the port town of Paradip to the company for the two plants and the slurry pipeline, one government official said.
The talk for the new steel plant comes in the midst of rising demand for steel as various infrastructure projects get built and more spending is anticipated in the budget for FY22.
Demand for automobiles has revived up and the real estate market has turned around. Experts are forecasting a long-term growth phase for steel in India.
“Elsewhere in the world, the steel industry is not growing so where else would anyone build a new plant if not India,” an industry veteran said.
~By Ruchira Singh
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