In June 2005, POSCO had signed an agreement with the state government of Orissa for the plant. As the residents in communities to be affected by the construction kept raising objections to the plan on environmental grounds including lawsuits, however, the company has been unable to make much progress on the project.

 

A few weeks ago, it had announced that it decided not to build a second steel mill with a capacity of 6 million tons in Karnataka, a state in southwest India. Even though POSCO cancelled the Karnataka project, it is likely that it would simply wait out for the market downturn before going ahead with the Orissa plan. Park Ki-hong, POSCO's chief financial & planning officer and president, also said recently, "We won't rush to build the steel mill in Orissa as we have spent so much for eight years."