During the "New Horizons in Global Steel Markets" 11th Annual Conference organized by SteelOrbis in Istanbul on November 17, Jitendra Bahadur Singh, managing director of JN Associates, a consulting company in India’s iron and steel industry, stated that total finished steel production in India has increased at a compound annual growth rate of 7.65 percent during the 2011-15 period, with the country’s steel production reaching 92.16 million mt per year in the financial year 2014-15 and 67.71 million mt in the financial year 2015-16. The country became the world’s third-largest crude steel producer in 2015, as large public and private sector players strengthened steel production capacity in view of rising demand, while the country is expected to become the second-largest producer of steel by the end of 2016.
Regarding the future prospects for India’s steel industry, Mr. Singh stated that India’s steel consumption is expected to rise due to increased infrastructure construction and the growing automobile and railway sectors. In the coming 10 years, India is anticipated to produce a total of 300 million mt of steel annually and to achieve this India will need to invest $210 billion over the next decade. Most companies in the industry are undertaking modernization and expansion of plants to be more cost-efficient. Domestic players’ investments in expanding and upgrading manufacturing facilities are also expected to reduce reliance on imports.
According to Mr. Singh, India's state-owned miner National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) is expected to increase the iron ore production to 75 million mt per year by 2021 amid new opportunities in the steel industry. Meanwhile, International Coal Ventures Pvt Ltd, comprising SAIL, RINL, CIL, NTPC and NMDC, has been set up for the acquisition of coal mines overseas. Moreover, attracted by the growth potential of the Indian steel industry, several global steel players have been planning to enter the Indian market. Accordingly, National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Russia’s third-largest steelmaker, Severstal, for a greenfield steel plant in Karnataka.