New Industrial Hub in AP

Tata Steel plans Rs 6,000 cr plant in Vizag:

Tata Steel has shown interest in setting up a Rs 6,000 crore (Rs 60 billion) steel plant in the port city of Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.

B Muthuraman, managing director, Tata Steel, met Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy in Hyderabad on Saturday and discussed the company's investment plans in the state.

"This included a proposal to set up a steel plant. Besides sharing their future investment plans, Muthuraman sought infrastructure support from the state government," a government official told Business Standard.

The size of the investment means Tata Steel can set up a plant with a capacity of about 3 million tonnes of steel per annum.

Botcha Satyanarayana, the state's minister for major industries, said, "Tata Steel has expressed its willingness to invest over Rs 6,000 crore in Visakhapatnam if the government extends the necessary infrastructural support."

According to Satyanarayana, Muthuraman has asked for 4,000 acres of land for the proposed plant, besides other basic infrastructure.

HPCL to start a new refinery:

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation plans to invest Rs 18,000 crore (Rs 180 billion) for building a new 15 million tonne export-oriented refinery at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh and another Rs 1,635 crore (Rs 16.35 billion) to increase capacity of its existing refinery.

"Our existing 7.5 million tonnes per annum Vizag refinery has space constraints and we cannot expand it beyond a certain capacity. We have drawn plans to build a new refinery some 30-35 kms away from the existing refinery," said M B Lal, chairman and managing director, HPCL.