POHANG STEEL COMPANY(POSCO)
IS INVESTING $12 BILLION IN PARADEEP
DETAILS: Korean
steel major Pohang Steel Company (Posco) has
zeroed in on Paradeep as the location for its
proposed 12 million tonne steel plant in Orissa.
The MoU will be signed with the state government
on Wednesday.
The choice of location is based
on availability of hard soil, its proximity
to the sea shore and a reasonably good infrastructure.
The Korean company has also
scaled up its investment programme in India
to $12 billion from $10 billion. The additional
$2 billion has been set aside for development
of a port, mine facilities and basic infrastructure
like roads to and from the plant.
“We plan to set up large blast
furnace to attain high output and reach 12 million
tonne final capacity. This requires that the
soil beneath the furnace be hard and be able
to handle enormous weight. Paradeep gives us
this advantage so we have selected it to put
up the steel plant,” chief representative of
Posco Santg Moo Doh told FE.
He, however, added that the
Orissa government was yet to give its approval
for the location of the plant. It is expected
that this clearance would be given after signing
of the MoU.
The state government had offered
three sites for the proposed plant: Damra, Dubri
and Paradeep. Mr Santg said after the visit
of an expert team, Paradeep was found to be
most suitable. Besides hard soil, Paradeep is
also near Orissa’s coastline giving advantage
to the company to use port facilities for shipment
of key raw material like iron ore.
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