On Tuesday 30 August, ArcelorMittal welcomed Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh, Union Minister of Steel of the Government of India, Mr P. K. Singh, Chairman, SAIL and the Indian Government’s Joint Secretary Ministry of Steel, Mr Sunil Barthwal, to its London offices for discussions regarding the proposed US$1 billion automotive steel joint venture  between ArcelorMittal and SAIL.

Mr Lakshmi Mittal, Chairman and CEO, Mr Aditya Mittal, group CFO and CEO ArcelorMittal Europe and Mr Brian Aranha, Executive Vice President and head of global automotive, who is leading the joint venture discussions on behalf of ArcelorMittal, attended the meeting along with other members of senior management.

ArcelorMittal and SAIL signed a Memorandum of Understanding in May 2015 to explore the possibility of setting up a state-of-the-art automotive steel manufacturing facility under a JV arrangement in India.

The proposed JV will construct world-class facilities for manufacturing automotive steel that will offer technologically advanced steel products for India’s rapidly growing automotive sector. The hot rolled input products for the proposed facility would be supplied by SAIL’s new state-of-the-art hot strip mill in Rourkela, Odisha, thus making the entire value chain indigenous.

The project’s Joint Working Group, which was established following the signing of the MoU, has completed the major part of the project’s Feasibility Report.

India is forecast to become the world’s third largest automobile manufacturing nation by 2026, with passenger vehicles likely to grow from approximately 3 million units today to over 7 million units in the next 10 years. In response to the growing level of automotive demand, and supported by the Indian Government’s ‘Make In India’ programme which has been designed to transform India into a global manufacturing hub, automotive manufacturers have been establishing an increased presence in the country.

Photo (L-R): Mr Devinder Arora, GM, ArcelorMittal India; Mr Vijay Goyal, CFO ArcelorMittal Europe; Mr Brian Aranha, Executive vice president and head of global automotive, ArcelorMittal; Mr Aditya Mittal, Group CFO and CEO ArcelorMittal Europe; Mr Sunil Barthwal, Indian Government’s Joint Secretary Ministry of Steel; Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh, Union Minister of Steel of the Government of India; Mr Lakshmi N Mittal, Chairman and CEO, ArcelorMittal; Mr P.K.Singh, Chairman, SAIL; Mr Sunil Kumar, First Secretary, High Commission of India; Mr Ganesh Vishwakarma, Director, Projects and Business Planning, SAIL; Mr Anirban Dasgupta, GM, Chairman SAIL Secretariat; Mr Sanjay Sharma, CEO, ArcelorMittal China and India.