India’s Tata Steel launches ferroalloy products with an eye on the Indian market; Cogent Power and Tata Steel UK Holdings no slouches either in electrical steel, stress-free rails, respectively.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going. India’s steel major Tata Steel has, time and again, lived up to this adage.
In today’s day and age when the global steel industry, especially the one in India, is under stress, Tata Steel has decided to tackle the situation head-on by identifying newer avenues of revenue. As part of this strategy, it has launched new products in the past year, two of them coming out as recently as last week.
New Ferroalloy Products, Welcome!
The two new products, ferro-manganese and ferro-chrome, were launched with an eye on the non-integrated steel and stainless steel makers of India.
Ferro-chrome and ferro-manganese are ferroalloys widely used as alloying agents in the production of carbon steel and stainless steel. Ferro-chrome provides resistance against rust, thus prolonging the life of stainless steel. Ferro-manganese, on the other hand, adds toughness and hardness to steel.
Analysts here feel the launch of the two products will ensure that customers are able to reduce their inventory holdings, get guaranteed quality leading to minimal wastage of heat, and customized sizes leading to easier handling of the material.
According to a news report in the Hindu BusinessLine, Tata Steel will be targeting a 38 percent share in the domestic ferro-chrome market and a 10 percent share of the local ferro-manganese one. The total market is about 300,000 metric tons a year in India for both, the newly launched TATA TISCROME and TATA FERROMAG brands.
Let’s Not Forget Electrical Steel
Late last year, Tata Steel subsidiary Cogent Power had unveiled a range of “sophisticated” electrical steel products which, the company claimed, reduced electricity losses by about 30 percent compared with conventional grain-oriented grades. The new products are being made at Cogent Power’s Orb works in Newport, South Wales.
The Role of Rail
In today’s times of global financial stress, railway tracks are blazing a new growth path for India’s Tata Steel.
Tata Steel UK Holdings (TSUKH), the wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Steel, had earlier launched a state-of-the-art facility in France that will produce super-hardened train track, also called “stress-free” rails, which will be three times tougher than normal rail. TSUKH has invested about US $65 million in the plant.