ArcelorMittal plans to start its India projects next year

New Delhi: Eying opportunities lay in the developing economies for its future growth, ArcelorMittal plans to start work on one of its 13 lakh crore projects in early 2011. The company has generated net income of $1.7 billion in the second quarter, up from a loss of $792 million a year earlier.

Aditya Mittal, Chief Financial Officer, ArcelorMittal, is optimistic about the Karnataka project, for which he signed an MoU with the state government last month. Speaking at its second quarter earnings call, Aditya Mittal said, "We are making fast progress on land acquisition near Bellary, Karnataka. Similar progress is being made in Jharkhand. We have also received water allocation in both the states. Hopefully we will be in a position to do some ground breaking in one of our projects in the near future."

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L.N. Mittal, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, ArcelorMittal, was the Chief Guest at the recently held global investors' meet at Bangalore. Last month, Karnataka Chief Minister, B.S. Yeddyurappa, had said that the company has already paid the initial 600 crore required for the land acquisition. The company is known to require a total of 4,000 hectares for the project.

Since 2005, the world's largest steel maker has announced intentions to set up steel plants worth Rs 1.3 lakh crore. In 2005, ArcelorMittal had announced plans to set up a 45,000-crore steel plant in Jharkhand and a year later it announced plans to set up a similar plant in Orissa. In June this year, the company had signed an MoU with the Karnataka state government to set up a 30,000 crore steel plant.

Meanwhile, ArcelorMittal also confirmed that it is currently having "exploratory" talks with NMDC for joint development of ArcelorMittal's iron ore deposits in Senegal. Aditya Mittal said, "There are some talks going on with NMDC with respect to joining forces for development of our mines in Senegal. But at this point of time only exploratory talks are going on."