Posted on 25 Mar 2015
India's Mesco Steel has signed an
initial agreement with Posco to set up a plant that would use the South Korean
steelmaker's finex technology to make steel.
The plant would come up at Mesco's facility at Jajpur in Odisha. This will help
the local company venture from producing pig iron into steelmaking and give
Posco its first local partner. The memorandum of agreement has no bearing on
Posco India's long-delayed mega greenfield steel plant.
"We have applied for environment clearance for 3.5 million tonnes of steel
making. In addition to this finex unit, we hope to put up additional
capacity," said Mesco Managing Director Rita Singh. She was excited, Singh
added, to have Mesco acquire a plant with newer steelmaking that doesn't
require coking coal, which India is forced to import.
Finex plants allow production of molten iron directly using iron ore fines and
non-coking coal and are cheaper to build and operate than the traditional blast
furnace.
While Posco had been reluctant to part with control of any project involving
the finex technology, which was developed with government funding, of late it
has agreed to sell some of its smaller units. The Indian company had been in
talks with Posco to acquire a 0.6 mt finex furnace. The two sides will now
begin negotiations on the details of a joint venture.
