Mining Weekly reported that, India’s leading steelmaker, the Steel Authority of India Limited (Sail), has confirmed that it is seeking to acquire, through a joint venture (JV) with other Indian companies, coking coal projects in Mozambique, as well as in Australia and Indonesia “We are looking at several opportunities, but I can’t discuss the names,” Sail chairperson S K Roongta told Bloomberg News in Beijing. “I can’t set a timeline but we would like it to happen at the earliest.”

He explained that his group was seeking to increase its steel production in order to meet growing domestic Indian demand. According to the World Steel Association, the demand for steel in India is likely to show an 8,9% increase this year and a 12,1% rise next year. It is reported that Sail itself expects to produce 14-million tons of crude steel between July 2009 and June 2010.

The JV, of which Sail is a member, was set up with the encouragement of India’s federal government and is called International Coal Ventures. The JV is composed of five companies, all State-owned. Apart from Sail, which is 86%-owned by the Indian government, the members of the JV are Coal India, the National Development Corporation, NTPC (National Thermal Power Corporation, India’s biggest thermal power generating company) and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam (another steel company). Sail and Coal India each have two-sevenths of the JV’s equity, while the other three each hold one-seventh.

Coal India was allocated two coal blocks in Mozambique, in March. These are the A-1 and A-2 blocks in Tete province. The International Coal Ventures JV was formed in May. The JV’s interest in buying further coal blocks in Mozambique was made public, in a document released by the Indian High Commission in Maputo, in August.

Sail is a fully integrated iron- and steel- making company. In terms of turnover, it is one of the ten biggest State-owned companies in India. It manufactures basic and special steels for India’s automotive, construction, defence, engineering, power and railway industries.

It also exports steel. Its products include hot- and cold-rolled sheets and coils, plates, bars and rods, galvanised sheets, electrical sheets, structural steel, railway products, stainless steel and other alloy steels.

Sail operates five integrated steel plants and three special steel plants, as well as its own iron-ore, dolomite and limestone mines. In fact, it is India’s second-largest iron-ore-miner and has what it calls “the country’s second-largest mines network”. Sail also has its own Research and Development Centre for Iron and Steel.

Although formally established in 1973, Sail can trace its beginnings back to 1960 and to the establishment of the Alloy Steels plant at Durgapur, in West Bengal.

The group is currently carrying out a modernisation and expansion programme. This will see production of hot metal increase from the 2006/7 level of 14,6-million tons per year (Mtpa) to 23,5 Mtpa by 2012 and thereafter to 26,2 Mpta; the production of crude steel rise from 13,5 Mpta (2006/7) to 21,4 Mpta (2012) and then to 24,6 Mpta; and the production of ‘saleable steel’ go up from 12,6 Mpta (2006/7) to 20,2 Mpta (2012) and then to 23,1 Mpta.

Modernisation will result in Sail producing all its steel using blast oyxgen furnaces, installing auxiliary fuel injection systems in all blast furnaces, processing all its steel by continuous casting, adding value by reducing the production of semi- finished steel, installing the latest computerised and automated process control systems and implementing online testing and quality control.
Source: Mining Weekly