OREANDA-NEWS. Gerdau, the leading producer of long steel in the Americas and one of the largest suppliers of special steel in the world, today announces majority ownership of its first plant in Asia at Tadipatri, Ananthpur District, Andhra Pradesh, India and change of the operation name from Kalyani Gerdau to Gerdau.

In 2007, Gerdau entered into a joint venture with Kalyani group company – Kalyani Steels Limited to acquire SJK Steel Plant Ltd. with an equal partnership of 45% each to form a JV. Post acquisition of Kalyani’s shares, the operation is now majority owned by Gerdau.

Recently, the plant started operations of its blast furnace, melt shop, sinter plant, power plant and rolling mill. It has an installed capacity of 300,000 tons of special steels, mainly focused on the automotive market.

“This is a new and very important chapter in Gerdau’s history. As we begin our 112th year of business, the start of the production of special steel in India represents our expansion to an important country, with an impressive cultural richness, good economic prospective and very dedicated people”, said Andre B. Gerdau Johannpeter, Gerdau’s CEO.

“This move paves way for Gerdau to come to India and cater to the domestic market to the benefit of our customers and improve over all standards in quality of steels manufactured in the country”, said Arvind Mathur, Executive Director-India for Gerdau.

Gerdau is the leading producer of long steel in the Americas and one of the largest suppliers of special long steel in the world. It has more than 45,000 employees and industrial operations in 14 countries with operations in the Americas, Europe and Asia, which together represent an installed capacity of more than 25 million metric tons of steel per year. Gerdau is the largest recycler in Latin America and around the world and transforms millions of metric tons of scrap into steel every year. Gerdau is listed on the stock exchanges of Sao Paulo, New York and Madrid, and has approximately 130,000 shareholders.

Gerdau’s Indian steel plant is situated at Tadipatri, Andhra Pradesh, and has an installed capacity of 300,000 tons of special steel - long products per year, focused on automotive, defence, railways and related industries.