A short thread on POSCO plant in Odisha (I worked in Steel industry for 5 years)

1. Odisha is iron ore resource rich state (substantial reserves of low grade iron ore too)
2. POSCO is a pioneer in COREX technology which uses low grade iron ore
3. First MoU signed in 2005 https://twitter.com/brajendra_rawat/status/1277030198559428609

4. First Odisha government said they will give land and mines, and POSCO wanted a port, so Paradip was a perfect place to have the 12mtpa steel plant right next to the port for exports.
5. 12mtpa plant in a single location would have been the biggest plant at that time in India

6. POSCO said they will bring the latest technologies + COREX to upgrade low grade ores and introduce many specialty steel grades that India imports. Expert in COREX - @ShahZankit
7. Then they said based on the success they will build more capacity in the mines to export ores

8. First mistake - immediately protests started saying our mines are given out free and they are making money out of it and Odisha government got cold feet and started dragging on giving clearances
9. Even then after recession, POSCO were still interested & ready to pay for land

10. But the government couldn't acquire even half of the 4100 acres requested by POSCO
11. Then POSCO made a 2nd mistake of identifying agriculture land (mainly beetles/tobacco cultivation) in the Paradip area, as the protests erupted, the over enthusiastic newspaper made it big

12. Huge protests started across India and the government went into paralysis mode
13. Odisha government could have stepped in to provide better compensation or otherwise given land for the plant at another location but did neither
14. Issue was taken upto the PMO but no action

15. POSCO still wanted to build in Odisha and were ready to pay for the mines and land, but by the time 2012 they lost all hope and decided to cut their losses and leave
16. A big loss for Indian steel industry, it would have been a 70000 crore investment

17. If that investment had materialized smoothly, Odisha would have been a success story for the next 50 years
18. Many companies got cold feet to invest in Odisha fearing loss of money and time, bad press and lethargic bureaucracy

19. People think it was one investment that got away, it doesn't work that way.Businesses do deep internal analysis before they make an investment
20. I was interning at Pratt & Whitney Canada & the Sales Head - India told me, Indian bureaucracy had the biggest ego he encountered

Please read as FINEX instead of COREX https://twitter.com/ShahZankit/status/1277205099757043712?s=19