China: China Magnesium Corporation Ltd (CMC) has executed and commenced a cooperation agreement with Pingyao County Fengyan Mineral Wool Co Ltd (FMW), effective from 1 February 2015. The effect of the agreement is that CMC will have a 60% economic interest in FMW, control a majority of the FMW board seats and be responsible for the management of FMW's business.

FMW is an established and profitable medium-sized metallurgy company based in Pingyao, Shanxi Province. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fengyan Coal & Coke Group Company Ltd. FMW can produce 150,000t/yr of ferronickel and uses the waste slag from the ferronickel production to produce mineral wool and mineral wool acoustic board products, among other industrial products. It currently purchases all of CMC's semi-coke to use in its ferronickel production. Any external ferronickel requirements in respect of CMC's recycling and production are also currently supplied to CMC by FMW.

India: There are plans to establish four major steel plants in the iron ore rich states of Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Karnataka, according to Union minister for Steel, Narendra Singh Tomar. He said that the country aims to acheive 300Mt/yr of steel production capacity by 2030 and the proposed four new plants are expected to contribute with a total capacity of 20Mt/yr.

India: JSW Cement, which has set up a 4.8Mt/yr capacity plant at Nandiyal in Kurnool, is hoping to increase its capacity utilisation to 100% in two years from the current 50%.

"This would be driven by an increase in cement demand from infrastructure and housing segments," said JSW Cement director and CEO Anil Kumar Pillai. The Nandiyal unit was set up with an investment of US$228m. "We are hopeful of using full capacity at the Nandiyal plant by 2017 - 2018 on the back of an increase in demand for cement."

The current plant could be extended to have a second unit of similar or higher capacity, if required. The long-term plan was to have 30Mt/yr in 10 years at multiple locations. For the slag requirements of the cement plant, JSW would also increase the capacity of its steel plant at Vijaynagar from 12Mt/yr to 20Mt/yr.

China: The total amount of steel slag generated in China was about 100Mt in 2014. At present, around 1Bnt of steel slag has accumulated in the country, but only 10% has been utilised for new purposes.