The board of directors of India’s JSW Steel Limited has approved a 50:50 joint venture with South Korea’s POSCO Group to construct a greenfield 6 million mt per year capacity integrated steel mill in the eastern state of Odisha, according to a company regulatory filing on Monday, April 20.
The filing said that JSW Steel Limited’s wholly-owned subsidiary Saffron Resources Pvt Ltd would become a 50:50 joint venture between JSW Steel and POSCO Group, comprising POSCO Company Limited and POSCO-India Private Limited. The transaction will be completed by December 31, 2026.
Saffron Resources currently possesses 887 acres of land in the state, including around 595 acres of freehold land and nearly 292 acres of leasehold land, which may be utilized for the proposed steel complex, the company said.
Earlier POSCO Group had proposed an investment of $12 billion to build an integrated steel mill by itself in Odisha, but the project was abandoned in 2017 after years of land acquisition disputes, regulatory hurdles and local resistance.
