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SAIL chairman SK Roongta on Monday said Tata Steel and ArcelorMittal have evinced interest to set up steel plants in joint venture with SAIL, although nothing has crystallised on the matter as yet."Mittal and Tata both have evinced interest to form JVs with SAIL. We are in discussion with both the companies but nothing significant has shaped as yet to talk about," Roongta said.He said the working groups of SAIL and Posco are drawing up details of floating a JV. The JV might set up a steel plant either in Jharkhand or Maharashtra but nothing about size and investment has been decided so far, Roongta said.He made clear that if the SAIL-Posco JV decided to set up a plant in Maharashtra, it will not be Posco's proposed $ 1 billion greenfield steel project in the state, to which SAIL would be a partner. However, even if it comes up in Jharkhand, he did not clarify whether it would be at Bokaro or Sindri."In Sindri where there is a closed fertiliser unit of FCI (Fertiliser Corporation of India) there is some spare land, which we have already seen. We are trying to find out whether it will be viable to set up a project there," Roongta said.SAIL, he said, entered into a memorandum of understanding with Posco first in 2007 and then again in 2009 with intentions to form a JV. Discussions have been going on since 2007 but there has to be a breakthrough within a certain time frame. " If things don't take shape in time then we may have to step back from our JV initiative with Posco," Roongta said.He, however, did not want to specify the time frame within which SAIL was looking to float the JV.On steel prices, Roongta said, prices on an average have come down by $50-60 per tonne globally in the past 3-4 months because of improvement of supply to the market. This improvement of supply has occurred due to increase in capacity utilisation of steel facilities across the globe and such capacity utilisations were made because of improved demand scenario. "Now whether this improved demand is real or for creating inventory is not clear. If it is for creating inventory then there may be further price fluctuations in the near future," Roongta said.He said steel prices globally were down by 40% at present from the price level in 2008-09, when prices were at its peak. But the cumulative impact of iron ore and coking coal prices on production of steel has remained the same as that of 2008-2009 till date.
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