On January 28, Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel Corp. (Nippon Steel) and Indian steel giant Tata Steel Limited (Tata Steel) announced that they have decided to form a joint venture (JV) for the production and sale of automotive cold rolled steel sheets at Tata's main facilities at Jamshedpur, state of Jharkhand, India, and have approved the framework of the project. Via the establishment of a continuous annealing and processing line with an annual capacity of 600,000 mt, the JV is expected to capture India's growing demand in the medium to long term for high grade, automotive cold rolled steel sheets in response to the development of the automotive industry in India.
Accordingly, the companies will continue to discuss the terms and conditions concerning the JV, and aim to sign a definitive agreement by June 2010 and start operations before March 2013. According to the plan, Tata Steel will have a 51 percent share in the JV, while Nippon Steel will control the remaining 49 percent.
Since its cooperation in engineering for Tata Steel's cold rolling mill which began operations in 2000, Nippon Steel has been cooperating with Tata Steel in the field of automotive flat products, including technical assistance on automotive cold rolled steel sheets, and in other areas such as Tata Steel's expansion of its Jamshedpur works and the planning of its new integrated steel works.
According to their statement, both companies will continue to discuss further possible collaborations in other fields such as automotive galvanized sheets and upstream processes.
Through the JV, Nippon Steel and Tata Steel intend to address the needs of Indian automotive manufacturers to procure high grade, cold rolled steel sheets locally.