The public sector steel maker Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL) has agreed to form a joint venture with power equipment manufacturer to build a high-end seamless tube mill at Vizag, Andhra Pradesh SE India. The investment will be over Rs 20000M (US$405M) investment.
The plant will have 400kt/y seamless tube mill capable of producing high quality seamless tubes for the energy, oil & gas and water sectors among others. After meeting the requirements of the domestic market, the company will also export tubes to destinations such as the Middle East.
The growing domestic market for seamless tubes has the potential to grow with government’s thrust on creating infrastructure. Once the joint venture agreement is signed between the partners, the entity would start tendering for plant and machinery. The tendering process is likely to start before the end of the current fiscal year this March. RINL’s lone facility at Vizag is an integrated long products site presently with 3Mt/y installed capacity and is at an advanced stages of commissioning an additional 3.3Mt/y capacity.