SAIL, Japan’s Kobe Steel sign pact for setting up iron nuggets plant in India
10 Jul 2012
State-run steel maker Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) and Kobe Steel of Japan today signed a memorandum of agreement for setting up a 0.5 million tonnes per annum iron nugget making plant in India.
Under the agreement, signed at Kobe's headquarters in Tokyo, the plant, to be located at SAIL's Alloy Steels Plant at Durgapur, west Bengal, will use Kobe's patented ITmK3 technology for making iron nuggets.
Iron nuggets are ideal material for steelmaking and ironcasting. They are essentially all iron and carbon, with almost no slag (gangue) and only low levels of metal residuals.
They are a premium grade pig iron product with superior shipping and handling characteristics.
As per the agreement, SAIL and Kobe Steel will be entitled to equal share of production from the plant, which will be for captive use.
SAIL chairman C S Verma and Kobe Steel president and CEO H Sato signed the agreement.