News Room - Steel Industry

Posted on 27 Jul 2009

Tata Steel to become 10-mn ton company by March 2011

Tata Steel is set to become a 10-million-ton steel company by the end of March 2011 as the expansion of its production facility at Jamshedpur is in full swing. Meanwhile, the company has set a target of saving nearly Rs 2,000 crore in the current financial year by cutting cost in its Indian operations through adopting efficient working practices, increasing output and doing aggressive sales and marketing.

 

Steel giant Tata Steel is working to enhance production capacity to 10 million tons per annum (MTPA) at Jamshedpur at an estimated investment of Rs 12,000 crore by January-March 2010-11. At present, the plant has a capacity to produce 6.8 million tons of steel annually. In addition to the existing plant, the company has also proposed setting up mega steel plants in Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh.

The company says it wants the site condition to improve and iron ore blocks allocated quickly. It also wants to operationalise the Orissa and Chhattisgarh projects quickly. While in Jharkhand it proposes to invest about Rs 42,000 crore in a 12 million-ton-per-annum (MTPA) steel plant, in Orissa it intends to pump in nearly Rs 22,000 crore for a six MTPA unit. The steel major also plans to invest Rs 18,000 crore in setting up a five-million-ton-per-annum steel plant in Chhattisgarh. For all the proposed projects, the company is in the process of acquiring land and mineral linkages.

Hit hard by the slump in demand amid the global economic downturn, the steel baron is targeting to save about Rs 2,000 crore by the end of the current fiscal in its India operations through cost cutting. The company has measures in place at its European unit Corus to stay competitive amid the downturn, a company official said.