New Capacity to Expand Indian Steel Output to Over 100 million tonnes

Indian raw steel output will exceed annual 100 million tonnes in near future. The output will increase by 5% to 44.2 million tonnes in 2007 from 2006, according to Japan Iron and Steel Federation. Two blast furnaces start operation in India in 2008 and major integrated steel projects are to come on stream after 2010 by SAIL, Tata Steel, Arcelor Mittal and POSCO. The new projects will increase Indian output capacity by 130 million tonnes and lifts the country to no.2 largest steel making country next to China. Indian economy was expected to grow by 8.1% in 2006 from 2005, which is highest growth next to China. Indian steel demand was estimated to increase by 10% to 41.9 million tonnes mainly for infrastructure and manufacturers including automobile. The steel demand will increase by 9.1% in 2007 when the government starts 11th 5-year plan with annual 9% growth from April. Indian steel export is expected to increase by 3.3% to 6.3 million tonnes in 2007 from 2006 due to higher volume for Middle East. The import will increase by 10.9% to 6.4 million tonnes due to higher demand for high valued steel products. Jindal Steel and Power commissioned blast furnace with 1.25 million tonnes of output capacity in 2006 while Ispat Industries started operation of electric furnace with 1.2 million tonnes of capacity. Bushan Steel & Strips starts operation of blast furnace with 2 million tonnes of annual output capacity in 2007. Essar Steel starts mid-sized blast furnace and Jindal South West Steel starts blast furnace with 4,000 cubic meters of capacity in 2008. SAIL will expand existing capacity by 10 million tonnes and construct new integrated steel plant with 12 million tonnes of capacity after 2010. Tata Steel plans to expand the output capacity by 23 million tonnes through 3 projects. Arcelor Mittal has 12 million tonnes of capacity by 2011 and POSCO has 12 million tonnes capacity by 2020. Indian raw steel output capacity could expand to 170 million tonnes after those projects.