Oman Oil Seeks to Set up Steel Plant in JV with
Steel Authority of India
Oman Oil has offered Steel Authority of India (SAIL) a joint venture partnership to set up a steel plant in the middle eastern country. Although SAIL chairman CS Verma declined to comment on the offer from Oman Oil citing confidentiality constraints, sources say the proposal from the Sultanate of Oman’s flagship company is being considered by the public sector steelmaker which will base its decision on the availability of raw material.
The proposal is for building a gasbased,
3-million-tonne (mt) steel plant that could use pellets from the joint venture
between Oman Oil and Brazilian miner Vale.
This is not the first time that Oman Oil has
joined hands with an Indian company. It already owns 26% stake in the
$1-billion, 6-million-tonne Bina refinery in Madhya Pradesh and has a 50% stake
in the Oman-India fertiliser company, SAOC.
In keeping with the Sultanate’s move to expand
its income base, independent of direct oil revenues, Oman Oil has already
established a 9-mt aluminum plant at Sohar with Abu Dhabi National Energy
Company and Rio Tinto Alcan which operates about a million tonnes.
Sohar, located conveniently on the Arabian
Peninsula, is also home to the 1.5-mt plant of Jindal Shadeed, which India’s
Jindal Steel acquired last year. The Delhi-based company has also announced a
finished steel plant in the second phase. “The plant has been provided with a
private jetty and the Oman government has supported with supply of gas. While
we have so far not taken supply of pellets from the recently-commissioned Vale
plant, we are in active negotiation with them for the same,” said Jindal Steel
CEO Vikrant Gujral.
If the proposed SAIL joint venture is signed, it
is likely to come up in this industrial area. Incidentally, the Port of Sohar
is being jointly developed by government of Oman, the Port of Rotterdam in The
Netherlands and SKIL Infrastructure in India.
Source: ET
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