SAIL-ArcelorMittal automotive steel tie-up soon, AP likely locale: minister

Union Steel Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh said on Friday that a joint venture between steel giants SAIL and ArcelorMittal to produce high-end automotive steel will be signed soon, with about Rs15,000 crore investment.

"They (ArcelorMittal) have the technology and they are keen to have a JV with SAIL. That is at a stage where things would click within few days or within one or two weeks' time. The JV is yet to be signed but I can say 99 per cent of the formalities have been completed," the minister told reporters in Hyderabad.

Singh said offers have come from the Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh governments for the site of the plant, but the government favoured Andhra Pradesh due to the advantages of the east coast.

"Keeping in view the Eastern Coast it has been thought that this (Andhra Pradesh) would be a better site to set up this JV plant," he said, adding there were ''still a lot of details'' to be worked out.

The minister said that in the next 3-4 years, India would be a hub for car manufacturing and that it is estimated that the country would make about 28 per cent of the total cars in the world.

SAIL and ArcelorMittal had entered into an MoU in May 2015 to explore the possibility of setting up an auto-grade steel manufacturing facility under a joint venture in India.

Singh, who was in Hyderabad on Friday to attend the diamond jubilee celebration of India's largest iron-ore producer NMDC, spoke to journalists on the initiatives of the government to achieve a targeted steel production capacity of 300 million tonnes by 2031. He said that India was poised to emerge as the world's second-largest steel producer by this month-end from the third position now, surpassing Japan.

Singh further said that a new pay scale for employees of state-run miner National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) will be announced today after a review meeting.

The minister said that the state-owned MOIL is working on lithium-ion based batteries for the electric cars to be manufactured in the country.

Singh said that the government was also considering setting up an electric-arc-furnace-based steel project using scrap in Palvancha in Telangana in the premises of the closed-down sponge iron facility with over 450 acres.

He said a steel ministry-appointed task force which was formed to study the feasibility of two integrated steel facilities promised for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana under the State Bifurcation Act would submit its report shortly.