Fortune India Exclusive: Bharat Forge to set up world’s second-largest titanium plant in Odisha for ₹3,500 cr

The world’s largest forgings company, Pune-based Bharat Forge, will invest over ₹3500 crore at Gajanmara in Angul district of Odisha to set up the world’s second-largest titanium-sponge plant, targeting global supplies mainly to the aircraft makers. 

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed in this regard with the Odisha Government and Bharat Forge is in discussions with IREL India (formerly Indian Rare Earths) for sourcing the raw material, Baba N Kalyani, chairman and managing director and Guru Biswal, CEO of the Aerospace Division at Bharat Forge said in an exclusive interview with Fortune India.

''Not only titanium, we have to work on many new critical materials, and these ores are available on the coast of India. Our aerospace customers are very interested and ready to invest with us in creating that capability'', said Baba Kalyani. Bharat Forge plans to set up a 50,000 tonnes per year capacity plant. It may take about five years for the plant to commence commercial production. Now the project is in the environmental clearance stage.

VSMPO-AVISMA, part of state-owned Russian defence conglomerate Rostec, caters to over one-third of the world's titanium requirements. A Chinese company, Baoji Qinghang Metal Material, also supplies about 50,000 tonnes per year globally.

The aerospace industry is currently facing a titanium supply shortage after international sanctions on Russia, following its invasion of Ukraine. VSMPO-AVISMA, a vertically integrated company, was the largest titanium supplier for aircraft makers like Boeing, Airbus, and Embraer and their supply chains. At present the aircraft makers have an orderbook of over 17,000 commercial planes and are struggling to meet the demand due to supply chain issues. The global demand for titanium sponges is about 12,000 tonnes per year in the aerospace industry. Titanium sponge has high strength, non-corrosive and low weight when compared to steel, making it an ideal material for aircraft manufacture, including fighter aircraft. The material is also used in nuclear plants, engine parts, ocean platforms, reactors, heat exchangers and to make dental implants and artificial bones. 

Titanium, which can be extracted from ilmenite, is abundantly available as placer deposits on the beaches of Valiyazheekkal and Chavara near Kollam in Kerala. The Kerala Government's Kerala Minerals and Metals Ltd (KMML) has a Titanium Sponge Plant (TSP), started in a joint venture with Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory (DMRL). The ₹143-crore TSP project was fully funded by the VSSC. With the inauguration of TSP, India became the 7th country in the world to have the technology for producing titanium sponges.

The public sector Mishra Dhatu Nigam (MIDHANI), under the administrative control of the Ministry of Defence (MoD), is the only manufacturer of titanium alloys in India and its global share is only 2%. The domestic production is mostly used in the country's strategic defence and aerospace programmes.

Bharat Forge is already a supplier of titanium forgings for Boeing 777X aircraft. In 2023, General Atomics and Bharat Forge formed a partnership to manufacture main landing gear components, subassemblies, and assemblies of remotely piloted aircraft like General Atomic’s Sea Guardian and Sky Guardian.