Tata Steel joins global effort for market extension in construction

The International Iron and Steel Institute (IISI) and 11 member companies signed an agreement to launch a five year Euro 14.25 million programme designed to increase the use of steel in construction by 10% by 2010.

The leaders of seven steel companies - Arcelor, BlueScope Steel, CELSA, Corus, Mittal Steel, Posco and Tata Steel - had met in London on February 11, 2005 to formally sign the agreement. The others participants include Erdemir, IMIDRO, Ispat Industries and Ruukki.

The proposed growth represents an estimated 27 million tonnes in production and a Euro 270 million per annum in profit value. The growth is to be achieved through a focus on growing the market in residential construction.

The estimated per capita consumption of finished steel across the world was 44 kg in 2002 with approximately 275 million tonnes of steel being used across the world for construction. An increase in steel consumption worldwide would therefore have a dramatic impact on the profit margins of these companies at Euro 10/tonne. The prospects of satisfying the universal demand for housing is, therefore, an extremely attractive opportunity for these companies.

The first meeting of these companies was held at Kolkata from February 21 to 25, 2005 to discuss the action plans for the future.

Members of the Technology Committee of the International Iron and Steel Institute from 17 countries visited Jamshedpur and Tata Steel on February 10, 2005. This plant visit was a part of the 37th meeting of the Committee, TECHNO-37, held at New Delhi on February 6, 2005. Every meeting is held in a different country and is combined with a plant visit. This is the second time that such a meeting is being held in India.

The members who attended the meeting and visited Jamshedpur represented 75% of the steel producers of the world including manufacturers from Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, United States, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and South Korea. The meeting was chaired by Dr T Mukherjee, Deputy Managing Director, Tata Steel, who is the Chairman of the Technology Committee.

The technical session during the meeting reviewed the progress made in different projects undertaken by the Committee including “Improving the Yield”, “CO2 Breakthrough Programme” and “China Project”. Several subjects of common interest including those Dr Mukherjee spearheads at Tata Steel - Safety, Knowledge Management and Research & Development - were discussed.

The second day of the two-day meet was devoted to presentations by manufacturers from the host country as well as a Technological Exchange on Non Metallic Coating Technology and CO2 Reduction Technology. The delegates also got an opportunity to visit Usha Martin where sponge iron is produced in rotary kilns and hot metal from mini blast furnaces are fed into electric arc furnaces to produce steel. This combination of technologies is becoming very popular in India. They also visited the Research & Development Facility of the Steel Authority of India, RDCIS, in Ranchi before leaving for their respective countries. The next meeting is scheduled to be held in Buenos Aires in April, 2006.