October 07, 2008

NMDC to go solo on steel project in Chhattisgarh - Report

BL reported that National Mineral Development Corporation plans to set up a 3 million tonne a year steel plant on its own in Chhattisgarh and one of its JV partner Steel Authority of India Ltd is no longer involved with the project.

The report cited a SAIL spokesman as saying that “NMDC will go and build the plant on its own. As far as we are concerned, we have our ambitious expansion plans lined up in all our plants for the next three years. We will continue to focus on them.”
NMDC has identified land near Dilmilli village in Bastar district in Chhattisgarh and currently public sector MECON is preparing the techno economic feasibility report for the proposed plant. The new plant would be set up subject to the availability of land from the State Government and also on the availability of linkages for key raw materials, water and power, official sources said.

In August 2007, NMDC, SAIL and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd had signed a MoU to set up 4 million tonne integrated steel plant in Chhattisgarh through a joint venture company. This MoU will now be scrapped and NMDC will go it alone for the project whose capacity has also been revised.

However, RINL will remain linked to the project to provide technical support to NMDC in the areas of project management and construction related activities.