Kobe Targets India for New Steel Plants

Japanese steelmaker Kobe Steel plans to establish steel plants in India to produce up to 1.5 million metric tons of steel a year.

Kobe Steel is talking with Steel Authority of India about building one or two plants capable of producing a million metric tons of steel annually. The company is also in talks with Indian steel resource developer NMDC to establish a 500,000 metric ton steel facility, according to reports from Kyodo News.

Kobe Steel and other Japanese steelmakers have recently targeted India for expansion because of the country’s rapidly growing demand for steel compared with flat growth in the rest of the world.

India has nearly doubled its output from five years earlier to 62.8 million tons of crude steel in 2009, according to the World Steep Association, making it the third largest steel producer in the world behind China and Japan.