State-run Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) on Wednesday announced that it had slashed investment for the proposed Sindri steel plant and a urea unit in Jharkhand by almost half to around Rs. 35,000 crore.
Talking to newsmen on the sidelines of a function here, SAIL Chairman C. S. Verma said the company had now proposed an investment of around Rs. 35,000 crore at Sindri plant of Fertilizer Corporation of India. The company proposed to set up a 5 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) steel plant along with 1.15-million tonne urea plant on about 6,500 acres in Sindri, which remained closed since March 2002, Mr. Verma said.
The trimmed proposal is in contrast to its earlier plans of setting up a 12 mtpa mega steel plant along with a urea unit, which would have cost the company about Rs. 70,000 crore. It is learnt that SAIL did not find this proposal commercially viable and decided to trim the scale of the project.
“The feasibility report on the new proposed plants would be completed in the next 2-3 months. After that we will take a view on filing the proposal to Fertilizer Ministry,” he added.
The Fertilizer Ministry had earlier rejected SAIL's proposal for setting up the plant saying it should first commit on setting up the urea units. Also, it asked SAIL to submit a revised proposal.
On the proposed alliance with South Korean Posco, Mr. Verma said a joint venture agreement could be signed in the next two months. SAIL was in talks with Posco to set up a 1.5 million tonnes steel plant at the land of its Bokaro Steel Plant. The Posco joint venture will be based on the global firm's finest technology, which uses iron ore fines and non-coking coal to produce high grade steel.
