JSW Steel plans to invest more than ₹50,000 crore to establish a 10 million tonnes per annum green steel plant near India’s financial capital, a senior company executive announced on Tuesday. “We will be investing Rs 50,000-60,000 crore for the green steel capacity,” Jindal told reporters. He also added that this will be a brownfield investment ( an investment in an existing facility) at its plant in Salav, of Raigad district over the next three-four years.
In March, the company had announced plans to increase the green steel capacity at Salav to 4 MTPA in phases. The investment is driven by the European mandate on green steel, and Jindal stated that the new 10 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) plant will produce just one-fifth of the carbon emissions compared to conventional steel plants.
Jindal also stated that China and Vietnam had been trying to dump their scrap into China, and therefore expects the country to be watchful as the government slaps safeguard duties for protecting local steel makers. Despite the inefficiencies in the sector, Jindal said that the sector needs investments of USD 20 billion per year and he emphasized that healthy profitability is essential for companies to fund new capacity expansion.
Speaking at the Indian Chamber of Commerce’s centenary year event, Jindal said, “China and Vietnam are trying to dump steel,” adding that the government is working on putting safeguard duties which will be in place soon.
China exported 120 million tonnes of steel just last year, with significant volumes entering India through Vietnam. “China is at its peak from a steel consumption perspective and scaling back production,” he said, adding that they are in search of markets to sell their excess steel.
Given the 10-12 per cent growth in demand every year, India requires 20 million tonnes of steel capacity more per year which requires an investment of USD 20 billion per year. He also noted that the government wants the private sector to invest while creating jobs and in turn, contributing to economic growth.
JSW Steel, the steelmaking arm of the $24 billion conglomerate, has set an ambitious goal to become the world’s largest steel producer by scaling up its annual capacity from the current 34.2 million tonnes to 100 million tonnes. However, the company has not specified a target timeline for achieving this massive expansion. Jindal revealed that the diversified group plans to produce battery cells in India through technological partnerships, initially leveraging Chinese expertise while also engaging in discussions with a Korean firm for similar technical collaboration.
Economic Times reports that he announced that JSW MG Motor India’s initial public offering (IPO) is expected to launch within the next 2-3 years. He also noted that the forthcoming JSW Cement IPO would be relatively modest in scale. “Indian business lost out to Vietnam in the last round, and needs to “buckle up” to make the best out of the opportunity that the current turmoil in world trade presents,” he said.
Source: Economic Times