NE BUSINESS BUREAU
AHMEDABAD, JULY 3
ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel (AMNS) India on Thursday said it will invest Rs 5,000 crore to ramp up the capacity at its Hazira plant to 8.6 mtpa, and has plans to spend another Rs 20,000 crore for its expansion in future.
ArcelorMittal Chairman and CEO Laxmi Mittal told this to Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani on Thursday in a video-conference, the company said in a statement.
AMNS India had acquired the Hazira steel plant from Essar Steel in December 2019.
According to the statement, the total investment the company intends to make for the expansion of the Hazira steel facility comes to Rs 25,000 crore.
AMNS acquired Essar Steel by paying Rs 50,000 crore in December 2019 following an order by the Supreme Court.
Currently, the company’s current investments are of Rs 5,000 crore to take plant capacity to 8.6 million tonnes per annum (mtpa), Mittal told Rupani, said the company’s statement.
In the near future, further expansion of capacity will be done, for which the capital outlay is of over Rs 20,000 crore, he said, according to the statement.
He thanked the chief minister for the single-window clearance in the Chief Minister’s Office for all the issues related to the steel plant.
Rupani welcomed the company’s decision to invest in Gujarat.
The current team would take it forward by continuing to welcome investments and creating a favourable ecosystem for ensuring the competitiveness of manufacturing industry, including micro, small and medium enterprises, Rupani was quoted as saying in the statement.
ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India also plans to ramp up its finished steel-producing capacity to 8.5 mtpa by the end of 2024, according to ArcelorMittal’s annual report for 2019.
AMNS India is a 60:40 joint venture between ArcelorMittal and Japan-based Nippon Steel Corporation that owns an integrated Hazira steel facility of erstwhile Essar Steel.
ArcelorMittal acquired debt-ridden Essar Steel India Ltd through the insolvency process and subsequently renamed it as AMNS India Ltd in November 2019. ArcelorMittal and Nippon Steel Corporation, later, formed the JV to own and operate AMNS India.
The resolution plan, which was approved for AMNS India (erstwhile Essar Steel), included an upfront payment of Rs 42,785 crore towards AMNS India’s debt resolution, including working capital payment, with further Rs 8,000 crore of capital injection.
