The world's largest integrated steelmaker ArcelorMittal will delay its $20 billion investment plan to build two plants in India due to bureaucratic and procedural difficulties in securing mines and licenses.
The completion of the two plants, each planned with an initial capacity of six million mt, will be deferred by at least two years to 2014 and their sizes may be cut. While the government has allotted plots in the states of Orissa and Jharkhand, land acquisition has yet to be completed.
In October 2005, ArcelorMittal said it would set up a plant with a final capacity of 12 million mt in Jharkhand, and in the following year it announced plans for another plant of the same final size in Orissa. While the initial sizes may be cut, there will be no change in the final planned capacities.