Visa Steel has entered into a joint venture with SunCoke Energy of the US to set up a coke plant in India.
SunCoke Energy will invest about Rs 368 crore ($67 m) to acquire a 49 per cent stake in the joint venture.
The JV will set up a 400,000-tonne heat recovery coke plant at Kalinganagar, Odisha, says a press release from Visa Steel.
The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2013. SunCoke is the largest independent producer of metallurgical coke (used in making steel) in the USA, which has been in the business for over half a century.
The demand for coke from large and medium-sized steel producers has been increasing substantially and there is more potential to coke business, comments Vishambhar Saran, Chairman, Visa Steel.
The Visa Steel scrip gained Rs 5, or 10.49 per cent, to close at Rs 52.65 on the BSE.
For the first half of the current year, Visa Steel made a net loss of Rs 145 crore, on a turnover of Rs 546 crore.