South Korean steel major Posco is taking a fresh look at setting up a greenfield steel plant in India. A joint working group (JWG) will be formed to implement investment on land owned by Rashtriya Ispat Nigam (RINL) at Vishakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.
The working group will have representatives from Posco and RINL. Specifics like investment, raw material linkages will be evaluated by the working group after studying the market.
Posco signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in 2005 to set up a 12 million tonne plant in Jagatsinghpur district near Paradip port. But till 2013, the state government managed to acquire only 2,700 acre and transferred 1,700 acre. The original requirement for land was 4,004 acre.
A draft policy of the Centre on promotion of greenfield investments in 2019 stated that the current planned capacity expansion of the existing players was expected to add 28-30 million tonne by 2024-25.
However, to meet the demand growing at 5.6 percent, an additional capacity of 25-30 million tonne will be required which would require setting up greenfield steel plants.