Vendors are ready to pull out of Singur and follow Tata Motors, said some of them, a day after Ratan Tata threatened to do so.
NMDC Spice International, a proposed 50:50 joint venture between state-owned miner NMDC and Spice Minerals and Metals, a part of the Spice Energy group, is close to acquiring two iron ore deposits in Armenia. The acquisition is likely to entail an investment of $500 million (Rs 2,173 crore).
Led by the record increase in benchmark iron ore prices, steel rates are set to climb steeply from August, immediately after the three-month period during which steel producers had promised the government to hold prices gets over.
Essar Steel is likely to join the race for Brazilian miner and steelmaker CSN's Nacionale Minerios (Namisa), a fully integrated iron ore company. Sources close to the development said Goldman Sachs has approached Essar with the acquisition proposal and the company was considering it.
By July this year, Corus plans to close the operations of Corus Packaging Plus' Bergen (Norway) unit, which has a capacity of 150,000 tonnes and employs 260 people. Further, it might reduce the capacity of CPP's Trostre Works in South Wales by the year end, which could result in a reduction of 290 positions in operational and functional areas.
Numbers collated by the Business Standard Research Bureau show that in the last three years, leading cement manufacturers have multiplied their nine-month profits manifold and mining and paper companies have more than doubled it.
West Bengal, which has seen many violent protests against land acquisition in the country, is now set to get another exemplary rehabilitation package for land-losers. After the free shares by JSW Bengal Steel, now Bhushan Steel is going one step ahead to give free land to land-losers as a part of its rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R) package. Sources said the R&R package has been submitted to the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC).
A day after Minister for Steel, Chemicals and Fertiliser Ram Vilas Paswan told Parliament that steel prices would come down by Rs 500 a tonne on account of the 2 percentage point reduction in Cenvat, makers of flat and long products quietly raised prices by Rs 1,500 to Rs 3,000 a tonne on March 4.
Tata Steel's greenfield projects in Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh have been delayed by about 12 to 16 months due to issues over land acquisition and resettlement, the company's executives said.
Token rollback will only help middlemen, complain large producers.
The dissent against the Tata Motors Rs 1 lakh car project at Singur appears to be finally ebbing with the disputed land being reduced to 120 acres vis--vis the earlier level of 330 acres.
Adding to its list of Ford, Maruti, Hyundai, Toyota, Tata Steel now boasts of Nissan and Volkswagen as buyers of Tata Steel.
The world's sixth largest steelmaking group, which has been stepping up its raw material security at a frenetic pace, has 300 million tonnes of iron ore reserves in India.
Mega greenfield steel projects announced in the country are set to add more than 100 million ton of capacity, but land acquisition activity for only 16 million ton has begun.
The group has earmarked over Rs 4,000 crore (Rs 40 billion) to acquire coal mines in foreign countries.
Nandigram may have turned into a war zone once more but the industry feels that the issue is national. Despite the current crisis being a turf war between the political parties, the genesis of the issue is land acquisition for a chemical hub project. Harsh K Jha, president, Indian Chamber of Commerce and MD of Tata Metaliks, said Nandigram per se may be a state issue but it has affected the investment climate and land acquisition across the country.
The top slots at three Tata companies -- Tata Motors, Tata Steel and Tata Consultancy Services -- will be up for grabs in two years with incumbents Ravi Kant, B Muthuraman and S Ramadorai due to retire in 2009.
Corus, which was acquired by Tata Steel for 6.2 billion in the beginning of this year, is eyeing global network alliances in automotive steel, as it aims to build a strong position in the international market.
Corus, which was acquired by Tata Steel for 6.2 billion pounds in the beginning of this year, is eyeing global network alliances in automotive steel, as it aims to build a strong position in the international market.
State Industry Minister Nirupam Sen, in his first public address in this area since Tata Motors chose it as the site of its new car plant in May 2006, said many companies were poised to follow Tata's lead in setting up shop in Singur.
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