AMNS laid foundation for ₹70,000 crore steel plant in Andhra Pradesh

ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel (AMNS) India laid foundation for its new 8.2 million tonne (MT) integrated steel plant at Rajayyapeta in Anakapalli district, Andhra Pradesh. The project will cost over ₹70,000 crore, which will be infused in a phased manner.

The steel manufacturing operations of the new plant at Rajayyapeta are planned to commence by March 2029, with other units likely to be ready in a phased manner over the following quarters. The plant will produce a diverse range of steel grades, including high-quality, value-added products. The project is expected to generate about one lakh employment, including the indirect jobs. The greenfield project, which has got environmental clearance for 8.2MT, to contribute to the company’s long-term objective to grow its crude steelmaking capacity to 40 MT.

The new plant, which is phase 1 of the overall project, will focus to meet steel requirements of automotive, infrastructure, renewable energy, defence, and advanced manufacturing grades that India has historically had to import. AMNS already produces over 700 grades of steel across existing operations.

The chief minister of Andhra Pradesh N. Chandrababu Naidu, union minister of steel & heavy industries H.D. Kumaraswamy, and deputy chief minister of Andhra Pradesh K. Pawan Kalyan attended the ceremony along with Lakshmi Mittal, chairman, ArcelorMittal, Aditya Mittal, chairman, AMNS India and CEO, ArcelorMittal, and Dilip Oommen, chief executive officer, AMNS India.

The Rajayyapeta project will be the first full-fledged greenfield project constructed under the guidance of LN Mittal, who long-cherished dream of building steel assets in India. The London-based Marwari businessman had attempted building various steel projects in the country in the last 20 years (in fact, the effort started before Mittal Steel's acquisition of Arcelor in 2006). His company signed an agreement with the Jharkhand government in 2005. It expired five years later and was followed by MoUs with Odisha and Karnataka, which, too, failed to take off. It was at that time, that Essar Steel came up for bankruptcy sale and he partnered with Nippon and won the bid in 2019.

The 60:40 joint venture spent ₹42,000 crore to buy the Essar Steel assets, majorly the Hazira steel plant. AMNS also bought the power and port assets of Essar in Hazira later for ₹16,500 crore. The company is now in the process of expanding Hazira capacity from 9 MT to 15 MT by this year, with plans to reach 24 MT by 2030. AMNS is also exploring two greenfield plants in Odisha for up to 24 MT capacity with a ₹1 lakh crore investment.

At the foundation laying ceremony, Lakshmi Mittal said, “I have been in the steel industry now for fifty years, and I can honestly say that what we are building here in India is one of the highlights of these 50 years." He said that the project is transformational for the local communities and Andhra Pradesh more broadly.

Aditya Mittal said that said, the new steel plant will be the modern and most competitive in the country. "Its coastal position and the fact it can easily be connected to the richest iron-ore belt in the country through our existing slurry pipeline, make this an excellent place to manufacture steel. South India is one of the fastest growing markets with excellent logistics, and so the plant will be able to cater to all the customers in the region as well as more broadly throughout India," he said.

The company has already reduced its CO₂ emissions intensity by 35% since 2015. The target is a 20% further reduction by 2030 (base year 2021). The environmental management plan for the Rajayyapeta plant has been designed to minimise impact, conserve resources, and support biodiversity.

AMNS is the country’s first integrated steel producer to receive Green Steel Certification under the ministry of steel’s newly established green steel taxonomy. On the occasion, AMNS India has signed two memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with the government of Andhra Pradesh for building (along with the New Age Makers' Institute of Technology) a future-ready industrial talent ecosystem in Andhra Pradesh by connecting advanced technology, materials innovation, education, and workforce development with the needs of modern industries.

AMNS India is already operating an 8 MT pellet plant in Visakhapatnam, and a port. Slurry pipeline connecting Kirandul in Chhattisgarh to Visakhapatnam has been moving iron ore for years. ArcelorMittal's 1 GW hybrid renewable energy project, its largest globally, is in Kurnool, 

Andhra Pradesh; the project now supplies renewable energy to Hazira steel plant in Gujarat.

AMNS India’s parent company ArcelorMittal recently announced an almost $1 billion investment in India to scale renewable energy to 2 GW. AMNS India is also developing a 550 MW wind-solar park in Bhachau, Gujarat.