India’s Tata Steel Limited has replaced the use of furnace oil with piped natural gas at its ferro alloys plant in Jajpur, Odisha, aiming to reduce carbon footprint and lower greenhouse gas emission, a company statement said on Thursday, March 21. The company has signed a memorandum of understanding with government-run oil refiner and marketer, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) for long term supply of piped natural gas.

India’s Lloyds Metals & Energy Limited (LEML) has received environmental clearance from the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change (MoEFCC) for construction of its planned 1.2 million mt per year wire rod project and a 4 million mt per year pellet plant in western state of Maharashtra, the company said in a regulatory filing on Friday, March 21. Lloyds Metals, incorporated in 1977, is a major iron ore miner in Maharashtra and a key direct reduced iron (DRI) producer with a capacity of 340,000 mt per year. The company operates a 34 MW waste heat recovery-based power plant and supplies to markets across India.

South Korean steelmaker POSCO Holdings has decided to sell all of its shares in Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel, according to media reports. This comes after Nippon Steel announced last year that it was going to sell its own shares in POSCO to improve asset efficiency, as SteelOrbis reported previously. Within the scope of its restructuring process to improve its financial strength, POSCO will sell its 1.5 percent share in Nippon Steel for KRW 467.8 billion ($318.93 million). However, both companies stress that their strategic alliance will remain in place without any changes.