SAIL and Kobe Steel to sign joint venture agreement next week

India's Minister of Steel Beni Prasad Verma will be travelling to Japan next week to oversee the signing of a joint venture agreement between the Indian state-owned steelmaker Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) and Japanese steel producer Kobe Steel Limited, India's Steel Secretary D R S Chowdhury said on Wednesday, July 4.
 
Under the 50-50 joint venture agreement, an investment of $272 million is proposed to construct an iron making facility to produce of 500,000 mt per year of iron nuggets, at SAIL's existing steel production facility in Durgapur in the eastern Indian province of West Bengal.
 
The original memorandum of understanding for setting up such a joint venture was signed in March 2010.
 
As Kobe Steel previously reported, the plant will use iron ore from SAIL's mines.