BL quoted Dr SK Gupta director of JSW as saying that the commissioning of JSW Steel Ltd’s blast furnace is unlikely to take place before March.

Dr Gupta said while talking to newspersons on the sidelines of the international steel seminar that “We are delaying commissioning in view of the present crisis in the steel industry. The current market is not conducive to absorb any extra production.”

He said that the blast furnace has the capacity to produce 2.8 million tonne of hot metal annually. This is the third blast furnace in the JSW plant.

Asked if there was already a production cut, he replied that one of the 2 operating blast furnaces, which was producing at the rate of about 3,000 tonne of hot metal a day, was closed but it was being put back into operation. The total capacity of the 2 blast furnaces is 4 million tonne of hot metal annually.

Mr Gupta said that “In view of the present situation, we’re going slow over our new investment plans.”

(Sourced from Business Line)