JSW Steel to expand Vijayanagar plant capacity

Leading integrated steel manufacturer JSW Steel plans to scale up the capacity of its manufacturing plant in Vijayanagar, Karnataka to 18 million tonnes per annum (MTPA), its chairman and managing director Sajjan Jindal has said.

"Our plan is to take to the next step to 18 MTPA from 13 MTPA," Jindal told PTI.

In June, JSW Steel had announced its plans to invest Rs 7,500 crore until March 2020 to increase the production capacity at its Vijayanagar facility to 13 MTPA.

"Hopefully, in the next two years we will start the work there," he said.

When asked as to how much money is the company going to invest in the expansion, he said, "I don't know the money numbers."

JSW Steel Deputy Managing Director Vinod Nowal also said that the company is planning to expand capacity of its at Vijayanagar facility to 18 MTPA.

The plant currently has a 12 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) capacity.

When asked about the timeline for expansion, he said that it "totally depends upon the acquisitions. Suppose something comes then we will take a little pause and ...if suppose Essar and Bhushan is not happening then we can go earlier also for Vijayanagar".

Explaining about the expansion of the company's Dolvi unit in Maharashtra, Nowal said, "Now we are expanding our Dolvi plant close to Bombay from 5 million tonnes to 10 million tonnes and that is our target to achieve by March 2020. Progress is at full swing actually."

The company, he said, is planning to spend around Rs 43,000 crore in the next three years in these expansions, besides downstream facilities.

JSW Steel is a part of the diversified $13 billion JSW Group. JSW Steel is the leading integrated steel company in India with an installed steel-making capacity of 18 MTPA.

JSW Steel's plant at Vijayanagar in Karnataka is the largest single location steel producing facility in the country with a capacity of 12 MTPA.