Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL) — Visakhapatnam Steel Plant — has received a proposal from the Saudi Arabian Government to revive a sick steel unit in that country and shortly a team from Saudi Arabia will visit RINL to work out the details, according to sources.
The sources said that RINL would provide the technical expertise and also marketing support to bring the three-million tonne steel mill back on track. At a later stage, there is also a proposal to set up another three-mt plant in that country as a joint venture.
The Visakhapatnam Steel Plant in association with the NMDC is also laying a slurry pipeline from Chhattisgarh to Visakhapatnam to bring eight mt of iron ore at a cost of Rs 2,200 crore. The project may be completed two years after signing the agreement. The RINL is also contemplating setting up of a slag cement unit and has invited several companies to study the proposal.
Expansion units
The newly commissioned units in the expansion project of the steel plant, including the blast furnace, are functioning well and the expansion project is almost 90 per cent complete, according to Mr N.S. Rao, Director (Projects). He said the raw material handling unit, blast furnace and other units were doing well and in a few months' time the units would turn out finished products.
Revenue generation would begin even in the semi-finished product stage, he added. By the end of the year, the steel plant would achieve the full capacity of 6.3 mt.
For the next phase of expansion, up to 11 mt, the steel plant would go in for debt in the debt-equity ratio of 1:1. He said the IPO of the steel plant had been deferred by a month or so.