SAIL-ArcelorMittal $1 bn JV to be finalised by December: Govt

The proposed $ 1 billion JV between global steel giant ArcelorMittal and India's largest producer of the metal SAIL will be finalised by December, Steel Minister Chaudhary Birendra Singh said on Wednesday. "I have told them (SAIL and ArcelorMittal) that JV formalities should be completed by December. It should be decided by December this year," Singh told here on the sidelines of an event by Indian Chambers of Commerce.

Singh met ArcelorMittal Chairman Lakshmi Mittal in London last month and discussed the JV, which aims at setting up an automotive steel plant in India.

The meeting was also attended by SAIL Chairman P K Singh, ArcelorMittal Europe group CFO and CEO Aditya Mittal as well as Executive VP and Head of global automotive Brian Aranha -- who is leading the JV discussions on behalf of ArcelorMittal, reports PTI. ArcelorMittal and the stateowned SAIL had inked a pact in May last year to explore the possibility of setting up an automotive steel manufacturing unit under a JV arrangement.

The proposed JV will construct world-class facilities for manufacturing automotive steel that will offer technologically advanced steel products for India's rapidly growing automotive sector. The hot rolled input products for the proposed facility will be supplied by SAIL's new hot strip mill in Rourkela, Odisha, thus making the entire value chain indigenous. The 'Maharatna' firm does not produce automotive steel and the JV will help it expand its product portfolio.

The Luxembourg-based Arcelor-Mittal said India is forecast to become the world's third largest automobile manufacturing nation by 2026, with passenger vehicles likely to grow from around 3 million units today to over 7 million units in the next 10 years.

In an investor presentation in June 2015, it had said the proposed steel plant will come up at a major auto cluster in India. India has four major auto clusters - Pune-Chakan belt in Maharashtra, in the outskirts of Chennai in Tamil Nadu, Sanad in Gujarat and the Gurgaon-Neemrana belt spread across Haryana and Rajasthan.