Essar gets nod for API monogram, eyes Rs 4,000 cr market

The Ruia group led Essar Steel has become the first Indian company and the sixth in the world to get approval for API monogram to be used on steel plates meant for the hydrocarbon industry.

This will not only help the firm to have a lion's share of the estimated over Rs 4,000 crore domestic market, but also open up opportunities to cater to the potential international markets including the Middle East and Europe and other geographies, an Essar Steel official said.

Being a port based steel plant, Essar Steel would be able to ship the wide plates easily to any market across the globe.

The American Petroleum Institute administers the API monogram as a service to the global oil and natural gas industry. The oil and gas industry relies on equipment and products identified by the API monogram.

Essar Steel will manufacture such plates at its Hazira plate mill, which manufactures extra wide plate with a width of up to five metre. It has an annual capacity of two million tonne and is the only one of its kind plate mill in India. The mill currently caters to various industries.

The quantity of production of API 2H, 2W and 2Y grades of plates, for which it has got API approval, would entirely depend upon the need, he said.

Apart from Essar Steel, China's Baoshan Iron & Steel and Xiangtan Iron & Steel; Japan's Sumitomo Metal, Austria's Voestalpine Gmbh and Ukraine's Azovstal Iron & Steel Works are other steel makers which have approval for API monogram.

Indian hydrocarbon industry currently imports all their annual approximately 200,000 tonnes demand from other countries. Essar's approval would also help them to get such plates domestically and thus cut down costs on transportation.