Essar Steel plans to raise $2 billion via pre-export finance

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Essar Steel India plans to raise $2 billion through pre-export finance to retire its existing rupee debt, the company said on Thursday.

The move will help de-risk Essar Steel's balance sheet as the revenue of the company were dollar denominated or dollar linked, it said in a statement.

The facility will result in a large interest saving of about 13-15 billion rupees annually and will help to elongate the average maturity of its debt from 3.5 years to 6.5, it said.

Essar Steel had earlier raised $1 billion through External Commercial Borrowing route.

(Reporting by Indulal PM; Editing by Anand Basu)