Hitachi-Mitsui Joint Bid For Tisco Mill
Japanese majors Hitachi and Mitsui have put in a joint bid for setting up Tata Steels Rs 1,880-crore CR (cold rolling) unit at Gopalpur. The other major contender in the race is the German consortium, SMS & Affiliates. The bids will be finalised within a month, a Tata Steel spokesperson told Business Standard.
Hitachi, which has a worldwide presence in the field of CR products, has also expressed interest in bidding for other units which are slated to come up as part of Tata Steels proposed integrated steel project at Gopalpur, the spokesperson said. However, it is not known whether the other bids will also be made jointly with Mitsui.
The German bid is expected to be represented by SMS India Ltd, the 59 per cent owned subsidiary of SMS Schloemann-Siemag of Germany, which is part of the German consortium, SMS & Affiliates.
According to a SMS India spokesman, the difference in the status of the two bidders is that while Hitachi and Mitsui do not have engineering capacity based in India, the German consortium has that advantage through SMS India Ltd.
The implementation period of the CR project, from the date of contract to the start of production, will be approximately three years, the spokesperson said. The contract will involve supply of entire equipment for the CR plant as well as expertise consultancy services, he added.
The average capacity of the CR mill has been pegged at 1.2 million tonne per annum. Tata Steel recently finalised the technological process for the project, for which it had Nippon Steel of Japan as technical consultant.
The bids for the project were invited after working out a final estimate of the funds required for equipment on the basis of the Nippon report, company sources said.
The proposed integrated steel plant will have a final capacity of 10 million tonnes per annum and will be commissioned in four equal phases, with average annual capacities of 2.5 million tonnes each. On completion, the plant will be the countrys first integrated shore-based steel plant.
With the new CR unit at Gopalpur, Tisco plans to make inroads into the domestic CR strips market.
The CR strips segment accounts for 40 per cent of the total demand for flat products in the country. It is expected that almost 50 per cent of the flat-rolled steel products will be cold rolled by the year 2005.
According to company sources, superior technology will give Tisco an edge over those steel producers in the country who are already into the production of CR products.
The technology, which will be used at Gopalpur, will produce products that are globally competitive, they said.
At present, Tisco only supplies steel to other CR mills, among which is its own group company, Tinplate Company of India.