RINL, Novolipetsk to ink tech pact to produce silicon steel

State-owned Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd will soon enter into a technological collaboration with Russia's Novolipetsk Steel Company (NLMK) to set up a plant for producing silicon steel, used in the power sector.

Russia's largest Steel maker with more than 17 million tonne per annum (mtpa) capacity, NLMK is also the world's biggest producer of Cold Rolled Grain-oriented (CRGO) or silicon steel.

It is a critical input for manufacturing transformers, key for generation, transmission and distribution of electricity to end-users.

RINL Chairman and Managing Director A P Chaudhary along with a senior Steel Ministry official are in Russia to sign the agreement.

India does not have any major CRGO steel plant and most of the domestic requirement, pegged at $2 billion, is met through imports. The requirement would go up manifold as the country plans to raise its power generation capacity in the next decade.

As RINL was originally built with Russian technology, there could be better business understanding between the two.

RINL, which is jacking up steel-making capacity to 6.3 mtpa from 3 mtpa, has plans to set up a number of new plants at various locations domestically.

Russia's second richest person Vladimir Lisin, with an estimated networth of $24 billion, is the Chairman of the company. He also has the majority stake in NLMK.