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Global steel giant Mittal Steel owned by NRI billionaire Laxmi Mittal is to cut consumption of natural gas at its Ukrainian steel plant following steep hike in gas price by Russia.
Mittal had acquired 93 per cent equity in Ukraine's biggest Kryvorizhstal steel plant in October last through its German subsidiary in a $4.8 billion re-privatisation deal.
According to a corporate release Mittal Steel has said that it would cut the use of natural gas at its Ukrainian facility and compensate it with cheap coal imported from China and Australia for its energy needs.
Under the deal signed on Wednesday between Russia's natural gas monopoly Gazprom and Ukrainian Naftogaz the 'cocktail' of cheap Central Asian and Russian natural gas would be priced at $95 per thousand cubic metres, double the price when Mittal had acquired Kryvorizhstal.
At the height of gas war with Kiev in the last week of December, in an obvious reference to Mittal, Russain President Vladimir Putin had on the record declared that Moscow "will not subsidise Indian business" in Ukraine.
Down-to-earth prices of Russian natural gas in Ukraine's domestic market were one of the decisive factors for the steel mill's acquisition by Mittal, media believes.