POSCO to go for Finex Technology for Orissa Steel

Seoul, Apr 15: The Posco-India steel project in Orissa, the first overseas venture of the South Korean Steel major and the largest FDI in India, will finally go for Finex technology instead for the blast furnace route.

Disclosing this to a group of visiting mediapersons from Orissa, Posco Chief Executive Officer and Presdient Ku-Taek-Lee said here the new technology, patented by the company, would bring much efficiency in the steel production and minimise swapping of iron ore.

The swapping of iron ore, as envisaged in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by the company on June 22 last year with the Orissa government, had already kicked off a major controversy, with the Opposition demanding scrapping of the clause for the interest of the state and the country.

Mr Lee said, ''The Finex technology is already on test run at the company's steel plant in Pohang, with a capacity 14 million tonnes. The technology is experimented on one million tonne capacity and worked satisfactorily in the first three months ending in March.

The Company, he said, would now further expand steel production to the tune of 1.5 million tonnes by next December using this technology. The same technology would also be implemented in the Orissa project.

Posco CEO said the Finex process would enable the company to use the high alumina contents in the iron ore available in India, particularly in Orissa, besides reducing the cost to operate.

He, however, said that there would be no revision of the capital cost to set up the plant in Orissa. The Integrated Steel plant required many other facilities besides the investment in Finex technology.

Posco would be setting up a 12 million tonnes steel plant on the Orissa Coast at Paradip in three phases at an estimated cost of 12 billion US Dollar.The first phase of 4 million tonnes would be ready by 2010 and the project would be fully commissioned by 2016.

UNI