India’s Essar invests $6.6 billion in energy and port projects in Gujarat

Indian conglomerate Essar has announced that it will invest $6.6 billion in energy transition, power, and port projects in the state of Gujarat, Reuters reports.

Essar is resuming strategic investments after last year’s sale of some of its assets in sectors such as telecommunications, oil refining, and steel to pay off $25 billion in debt.

Planned investments of INR 550 billion in Gujarat will include the development of a 1 gigawatt green hydrogen project, expansion of the Salaya power plant, and the transformation of the Salaya port into a logistics center.

Prashant Roy, Director of Essar Capital, noted that Gujarat is consistently at the forefront of the company’s strategic investments, and the conglomerate is further contributing to the state’s economic progress.

The company reported that it signed three related MoUs with the Gujarat government, but did not disclose an estimated completion date for these projects.

As GMK Center reported earlier, last November AMNS India, a joint venture of ArcelorMittal and Nippon Steel, announced on the completion of the transaction for the acquisition of Essar Group’s ports and energy assets, having received the necessary corporate and regulatory approvals. The agreement with Essar was reached in August of this year, the value of the transaction was about $2.02 billion. The acquisition of infrastructure and energy assets will strengthen the integration of AMNS’ production and logistics chain and will support the steel plant in Hazira (Gujarat) with a production capacity of 9 million tons per year.