Japanese steelmaker JFE Steel Corporation announced that it has signed an agreement with its strategic partner India's JSW Steel Limited, to provide manufacturing technology for the production of automotive steel in Cold Rolling Mill 2 (CRM-2) at Vijaynagar, India. The production is expected to start by fall 2013.
Accordingly, JFE Steel which has a 15 percent stake in JSW will provide assistance to develop various grades of steel, including steel for external panels for automobiles to meet the high end and diverse local demands from automakers with production bases in India.
JFE steel will also provide technical assistance for the operations of the 2.3 million mt per year cold rolling mill, 1.9 million mt per year continuous annealing lines, and 400,000 mt per year continuous galvanizing line at CRM-2.
India's automobile industry is expected to maintain a sustainable growth far into the future. The CRM-2 capacity will help JSW immensely to make a full-scale entry into the automotive steel market and expand steel sales.