TATA Steel Group unit Corus announced that it is taking decisive action to mitigate the effects of the softening near term steel demand outlook.

The release said that “Corus has decided to reduce its crude steel production over the next three months by up to 20%, ie by around 1 million tonnes.”

It said that the decision is aimed at aligning steel production with demand, which is now affected by the consequences of the global financial crisis.

Mr Philippe Varin CEO of Corus said that "We are taking appropriate steps to optimize our operations and protect our sound financial position over the next few months.”

As per media reports, Mr Ram Vilas Paswan minister for steel, chemicals & fertilizers will meet steel producers today to consider changes in the current duty structure on the product.

Mr Paswan said that “Steel companies cooperated with us by cutting prices when global prices were high. Now that prices have crashed, we will also consider measures to help them.”

Stung by a surge in cheaper steel imports and a receding order book, domestic steel majors have demanded predisposition of import duty on steel of 10% to 15%. Producers claim that in the absence of import duty, cheaper imports have flooded local markets leading to piling up of their inventories.

Mr SK Roongta chairman of Steel Authority of India Limited told FE that “When prices were high, Government took special measures to ensure availability of steel at affordable prices. But since the situation has changed, the government must take measures to ensure safeguards against such imports.”

Steel majors in their representations to the ministry maintained that secondary producers as well as traders were importing cheaper steel despite huge price reductions.

The decline in Indian domestic price index was minor only of 19 and 11 points respectively for long and flat products and a meager 15 points in the Steel Price Index.

LPPI – Long Product Price Index
FPPI – Flat Product Price Index
ISPI – Indian Steel Price Index

To know more about these indices please visit
http://steelprices-india.com/spi_services/spi.html

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It is reported that Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industries has sought concessions for the domestic steel industry from the government by withdrawing 15% of export duty on steel. The steel industry is under immense pressure in view of the growing imports from other countries.

Ahead of the crucial steel producers meeting with the government FICCI has asked the Indian government for certain concessions for the steel industry. It has sought the withdrawal of export duty on steel that is around 15% returning to the level of 5% import duty on steel from the current 0%.

It has also demanded restoration of duty entitlement passbook scheme benefits to steel exports and strengthening of imports surveillance mechanism to check the under invoiced and sub standard imports.

FICCI said that in view of the rapidly changing circumstances in the domestic and international steel market, there is an urgent need for reviewing the measures imposed by the Central government on steel industry to check the inflation in the last few months.

Dr Amit Mitra secretary general of FICCI said that “Steel prices have shown downward trend in the last one month’s period and also the contribution of steel to the inflation in India has declined over the period as a result of joint efforts of industry and government.”

FE reported that Universal Success Energy, a subsidiary of Singapore based Universal Success Enterprises, has signed a MoU with the West Bengal government on for setting up a 10,000 MW thermal power plant at an investment of around INR 60,000 crore.

For the 10,000mw project, which will be the single biggest project in India in terms of capacity, Universal Success will need 5000 acre, which it plans to buy directly at market prices.

However, it has given a rider that the company will move ahead with the project if only the people of the state want it. Mr Prasoon Mukherjee promoter of the company after the signing of the MoU said that "Even as we have committed an investment of INR 60,000 crore, but we will first satisfy ourselves that the people of Bengal are willing to have the project in the state."

Mr Mukherjee said that “The project will be implemented in phases and Universal plans to set up a 2000 MW plant first on 1000 acre, entailing INR 11,000 crore investments by 2012. It will invest another INR 5000 crore for building a port in 300 acres to 400 acres, because the entire coal will be sourced from Indonesia. The port will have a capacity of handling at least 30 million tonne of coal per year.”

Mr Mukherjee added that "Universal has coal blocks in Indonesia and sourcing coal for the 10,000 MW project will not be a problem.”

He also said that “Universal has proposed to set up similar kind of power projects in Maharashtra and Gujarat and the governments there have promised to give all support.”

FE reported that Orissa government's Single Window Committee has cleared 13 industrial projects involving a total investment of INR 27,193 crore.

It includes
1. Power projects - 3
2. Steel plant - 1
3. Cement plants - 2
4. Iron ore beneficiation and pelletization projects - 5

Power projects
1. Astarang Power Company Ltd is planning to set up a 2640 MWplant in Puri district with an investment of INR 11,200 crore
2. Visakha is proposing to set up an 1100 MW plant in Bhadrak district entailing an investment of INR 4800 crore
3. The Hind Bharat Energy is proposing to enhance the capacity of its power project at Jharsuguda to 700 MW from 250 MW investing INR 3150 crore

Steel plant
1. Bhusan Power & Steel Limited is setting up steel facilities for cold rolling steel, wire, rod, galvanized steel besides cement at Sambalpur with an investment of Rs 2000 crore.

Iron ore beneficiation and pelletization projects
1. Welspun has plans to set up a 4.5 million tonne per annum iron ore beneficiation and pelletization plant in Bhadrak district with an investment of INR 1900 crore
2. JSW is proposing to set up a 7 million tonne per annum iron ore beneficiation plants and a 5 million tonne per annum pelletization plant in Sundergarh district investing INR 1450 crore.
3. Bhusan Steel Ltd is going to put up facilities for 4 million tonne per annum iron ore beneficiation and pelletization in Keonjhar district with an investment of INR 850 crore

The panel cleared six of the 13 projects that involve an investment of less than INR 1000 crore. The rest, which involve investments of more than INR 1000 crore each, has been recommended to the High Level Clearance Committee headed by chief minister Mr Naveen Patnaik. The big-ticket projects recommended to HLCC are Visakha Thermal Power Plant, Hind Bharat Energy, Lanco Solar, JSW Steel, Bhusan Power & Steel Ltd, Astarang Power Company Ltd and Welspun Steel Ltd.

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Amidst the currently prevailing volatile and speculative steel price scenario in India, SteelGuru.com has started the much needed barometer to track and measure the price movements on daily basis.

Steel prices being an issue at the forefront in the context of inflation, drawing significant government attention, making up for about 4 per cent in the Wholesale Price Index(WPI), has been media's most favorite and hot topic at the moment. Unfortunately, the facts are misrepresented very often due to complexity in the structure and the dynamics of the steel market, leaving the users of the information mostly in a state of confusion.

In order to provide an index for steel prices, we call it SENSEX for steel, SteelGuru.com decided to work on both long products and flat products for respective category indices as also a composite one for steel. We call them ILPPI, IFPPI and INDSPI and have started releasing these indices with effect from July 1st 2008, after taking June 30th 2008 as base.

ILPPI is based on daily market prices of three benchmark products rebars, wire rod and sections in 4 metros, whereas IFPPI is based on HRC, plates, CR and HDG. These indices have been built considering their respective weights in the composite categories as also in the shares of sales in the regional markets.

The pricing input is from www.steelprices-india.com, which publishes market transaction prices of benchmark products among select locations 5 days a week.

These price indices outline the way domestic steel market is moving day by day and will help producers, agents in the supply chain, steel buyers, bankers and analysts in their respective businesses.

To know more, please visit
http://steelprices-india.com/spi_services/spi.html

The prices remained stable across the country with marginal deviations in some locations like Ahmedabad, Kanpur, Raipur and Mandi.

Kolkata

Change is on October 16th as compared to October 15th
Change is in INR per tonne

Delhi

Change is on October 16th as compared to October 15th
Change is in INR per tonne

Chennai

Change is on October 16th as compared to October 15th
Change is in INR per tonne

Mumbai

Change is on October 16th as compared to October 15th
Change is in INR per tonne

Ahmedabad

Change is on October 16th as compared to October 15th
Change is in INR per tonne

Kanpur