FE reported that Jindal Steel & Power Limited plans to spend up to INR 15,000 crore in the next 3 years to add another 3.5 million tonnes capacity at its Raigarh plant in Chhattisgarh, taking its annual production capacity to 6.5 million tonnes.

Under this expansion plan, JSPL will set up new blast furnace to produce mainly compact strip products. At present, the CSP technology allows production of hot roll coils with a thickness of less than even 1mm.

Mr NA Ansari, whole time director and executive director at JSPL Raigarh, said that "We would add 3.5 million tonnes capacity in our first phase of expansion. The CAPEX for this has been estimated at nearly INR 12,000 to INR 15,000 crore. By next year end, we will have all the approvals in place and another 24 months, the plant should be operational."

Mr Ansari said that though there were internal discussions were going on which technology the company should adopt for expansion. He added that “Most probably we will settle down for the new blast furnace and would produce CSPs. Our Angul steel plant is gas based. Though, the blast furnace is conventional, we do not want to have same technology at all our plants. Therefore we would set up a new, larger blast furnace."

Most of the steel makers use the conventional hot strip mill to roll out finished steel. In India, only JSW Ispat has the CSP mill.

(Sourced from www.financialexpress.com)