Displaying items by tag: joint venture

India: The Bureau of Indian Standards has granted a licence to Counto Microfine Products (CMP), a joint venture of Ambuja Cements and medical company Alcon Group, for the production of micro-fine Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) and ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) cement. The Times of India newspaper has reported that CMP operates a grinding plant in the state of Goa.

Belgium: The European Commission (EC) has blocked the creation of a joint venture between Tata Steel and ThyssenKrupp. It said that the merger would have reduced competition and increased prices for different types of steel. It added that the parties did not offer adequate remedies to address these concerns.

“Steel is a crucial input for many things we use in our everyday life, such as canned food and cars. Millions of people in Europe work in these sectors and companies depend on competitive steel prices to sell on a global level. Without remedies addressing our serious competition concerns, the merger between Tata Steel and ThyssenKrupp would have resulted in higher prices. So we prohibited the merger to avoid serious harm to European industrial customers and consumers,” said Commissioner Margrethe Vestager.

The proposed joint venture would have combined the flat carbon steel and electrical steel activities of ThyssenKrupp and Tata Steel in the European Economic Area (EEA). ThyssenKrupp is the second largest producer of flat carbon steel in the EEA while Tata Steel is the third largest. Both companies are significant producers of metallic coated and laminated steel for packaging applications and of galvanised flat carbon steel for the automotive industry.

Europe: Tata Steel and ThyssenKrupp have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to create a European steel company by merging their flat steel businesses in Europe and including ThyssenKrupp’s steel mill. The proposed 50:50 joint venture will have its headquarters in Amsterdam and will be able to supply around 21Mt/yr of flat steel products.

“The Tata Group and ThyssenKrupp have a strong heritage in the global steel industry and share similar culture and values. This partnership is a momentous occasion for both partners, who will focus on building a strong European steel enterprise. The strategic logic of the proposed joint venture in Europe is based on very strong fundamentals and I am confident that ThyssenKrupp Tata Steel will have a great future,” said N Chandrasekaran, the chairman of Tata Steel.

The merger will create the region’s second largest steel producer after ArcelorMittal. Cost synergies of up to Euro600m/yr are expected through the integration of commercial functions, research and development and other supporting activities. In addition to this, ThyssenKrupp Tata Steel would seek to improve capacity utilisation of the network across the three hubs of Ijmuiden in the Netherlands, Duisburg in Germany and Port Talbot in the UK and their related downstream facilities.

Turkey: Harsco and Tosyali Holding, a flat steel and steel pipe producer, have started a joint venture relationship for metal recovery services and slag sales at the Toscelik Osmaniye flat steel plant, a unit owned by Tosyali. The agreement with Tosyali marks Harsco’s first entry into Turkey’s steelmaking sector.

“Since slag disposal is one of the main challenges of the Turkish steel industry, we aim to recycle and recover these slag wastes,” said Tosyali’s board chairman Fuat Tosyali. He added the two companies intend to increase the number of slag disposal units in the country to handle 1.2Mt/yr of slag.

India: Rashtriya Ispat Nigam (RINL) is seeking partners to set up a joint venture 6Mt/yr cement plant in Vizag, Andhra Pradesh at a cost of US$472m. The government-run steel producer is currently in the process of floating a global tender inviting expressions of interest from interested parties.

RINL's interest in the project is to use fly ash and slag generated at its 2.9Mt/yr Visakhapatnam steel plant. Previously, RINL sought partners for the project in 2011 for a 3Mt/yr cement plant at a cost of around US$200m. RINL has since decided to increase the production capacity of the proposed project to over 6Mt/yr due the amount of fly ash and slag it produces. At present 1.2Mt/yr of slag is sold to local cement producers.

China: Gezhouba Group Cement and Hubei Zhongxia Cement Company have signed an agreement to form a joint venture to restructure the assets and businesses of Zhongxia Cement.

Under the terms of the agreement, the joint venture with a registered capital of US$190m, will be engaged in production and sales of cement, clinker and fine slag powder and opencast mining of limestone for cement uses. Gezhouba Cement will hold 51% of the joint venture and Zhongxia Cement will hold the remaining 49%. The joint venture will acquire the entire current assets of inventories for cement production and operation of Zhongxia Cement after establishment.