Indian state-owned steelmaker Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL) will sign an agreement with the Russian steelmaker NLMK regarding technological collaboration to build a plant producing silicon steel for the power industry, according to local Indian media reports.
India does not have any major cold rolled grain-oriented steel plant and most of the domestic requirement, which is worth $2 billion, is met through imports. The grain-oriented steel requirement is expected to go up as the country plans to raise its power generation capacity in the coming decade.
NLMK is the world's biggest producer of cold rolled grain-oriented or silicon steel, while it has an annual output capacity of 17 million mt of steel.
Silicon steel is a critical input for manufacturing transformers, key for generation, transmission and distribution of electricity to end-users.