Nippon Steel and Tata steel Hold Groundbreaking Ceremony of Joint CAPL in India

Nippon Steel of Japan and Tata Steel of India held a groundbreaking ceremony for a joint continual annealing and processing line (CAPL) in Tata Steel’s Jamshedpur iron works on April 25. CAPL’ production capacity for cold rolled sheet is 600,000 tonnes per year mainly for automobile. Nippon Steel and Tata Steel will start the operation in fiscal 2013 ending in March 2014. Nippon Steel will start local supply of high quality cold rolled sheet to Japanese automakers’ plants in India and follow the car market growth in the country.

Mr. Hemant M. Nerurkar, Tata Steel’s managing director, Mr. Shinichi Higuchi, Nippon Steel’s managing director, and executives of Nippon Steel Engineering and Larsen & Toubro attended the ceremony. Mr. Nerurkar said Tata Steel regards this project as a benchmark for product quality as well as new product development and customer service. Mr. Higuchi said both companies construct and operate CAPL with first preference on safety.

Both companies signed the joint venture contract for production and sales of cold rolled sheet for automobile in January 2011. The joint company’s capital fund is 8.7 billion rupees (approximately 16 billion yen), 51% shared by Tata Steel and 49% by Nippon Steel. Total investment is approximately 40 billion yen. Nippon Steel transfers production technology of high quality cold rolled sheet for automobile to Tata Steel.