NMDC to go ahead with India steel project without Severstal

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - NMDC Ltd , India's largest iron ore producer, is going it alone with a project to build a 3 million-tonne-a-year steel plant without Russian partner Severstal , NMDC's chairman said on Wednesday.

"There has not been much of a response (from Severstal)," NMDC Chairman C.S. Verma told reporters. "For the time being we are implementing it as an NMDC-only project."

Verma did not say why Severstal was not interested in the project, initial agreements for which were signed in 2010.

Severstal spokeswoman Anastasia Mishanina said the company had decided to suspend its project in India due to "complicated business conditions."

 

Analysts and industry officials had previously said that Severstal was unlikely to go ahead with the project because the Indian government, owner of NMDC, was not keen on giving the Russian company a majority stake.

NMDC's chairman's comments follow a decision last month by steelmaker ArcelorMittal and South Korea's POSCO <005490.KS> to abandon two separate steel projects in India with total capacity of 18 million tonnes due to certain delays, including delays in acquiring land and mining rights.

(Reporting by Krishna N Das. Additional reporting from Svetlana Burmistrova in Moscow. Editing by Jane Merriman)