India’s Ministry of Steel has stopped classifying steel producers as primary producers and secondary producers, aiming to offer a level playing field for various product processes and government procurement, a government official said on Monday, February 25.
The official said that the ministry will stop classification of steel producers by steel production process with immediate effect.
Typically, until now, the government has classified basic oxygen furnace route steel producers as primary producers and electric arc furnace-based producers as secondary producers.
The ministry has issued a directive to all government steel procurement agencies not to classify steel producers by their production process and that tenders floated by the agencies should not specify a preference for one process over the other or offer pricing incentives to any one particular steel production process.