At the World Steel Association's (worldsteel) 46th annual meeting held in New Delhi on October 10, India's minister of steel Beni Prasad Verma said that steel production capacity in India has increased from 66 million mt in 2009 to about 90 million mt in 2012. Capacity is all set to increase further as steel plants in both the public and private sectors have adopted expansion and modernization programs, he added. As per projections, the capacity in the country may reach around 200 million mt by 2020, the steel minister said, going on to state that India may thus become the second largest steel producing country in the world behind China, while currently it ranks fourth.
Mr. Verma said that in order to achieve growth in the Indian steel industry it is important to have raw material security, which would include optimum resource utilization and the securing of raw material sources abroad. He added that global strategic partnerships will play an important role in achieving this.
India has a sizeable quantity of iron ore fines, which at present are not being fully utilized due to the need for more improved beneficiation and pelletization technologies, said the Indian steel minister. "We plan to use modern techniques of beneficiation and pelletization for adding value to our iron ore and also for optimum utilization of our mineral resources," he said.
At present, the Indian steel industry is dependent largely on imported coking coal. Verma stated that in order to increase the country's steel production it is important to maximize the usage of local production coking coal by adopting the latest coal washing technologies, while he underlined the importance of adopting alternate iron-making technologies, which can directly use non-coking coal and low grade iron ore fines. The recent JV agreement with Japanese steel producer Kobe Steel is a step in the right direction, he added.