Angul steel project to help in turnaround of JSPL, says Jindal
Jindal Steel & Power Ltd (JSPL) chairman Naveen Jindal said on Saturday that the commissioning of 4 million tonne per annum (mtpa) steel capacity at the company’s Angul facility in Odisha would contribute a lot in the financial turnaround of the company.
The newly-built 4 mtpa facility has taken the total steelmaking capacity at Angul to 6 mtpa and the total steel capacity of the company to 10.75 million tonne, making it the fourth largest steel producers in the country.
The company was already operating a 2 mtpa unit at Angul since 2015, which produced steel through coal gasification or DRI route.
The full 6-mtpa plant of JSPL was dedicated to the nation by Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Saturday.
Talking to media persons after the inauguration, Jindal said, his initial plan to come to Angul was to produce steel using the path breaking coal gasification route. But the cancellation of coal blocks in 2014 was a big jolt, following which, he has set up the second module of 4 mtpa at Angul using the blast furnace and SMS (steel melting shop) route.
“We suffered a lot due to coal block cancellation and losses (for Angul project) have mounted to about ~7,000 crore to ~8000 crore)”, he said.
Out of total ~33,000 crore invested at the Angul complex till date, about ~24,000 crore was debt with the interest payout estimated at about ~200 crore per month. “We hope the newly installed 4-mtpa steel unit will start contributing to interest payout from July onwards”, he said.
Jindal added, “It will take some time to stabilize the unit. We will gradually step up production from the new unit from 60,000 tonnes this month to 150,000 tonne in June, 200,000 tonne in July, 300,000 tonne in August and hope to reach the rated capacity of 4 mtpa in next fiscal.”
The total 6 mtpa steel plant at Angul required about 11 million tonne iron ore annually. A small chunk of it (about 1.5 million tonne) will come from the company’s own mine at Tensa in Sundergarh district, while the rest will be procured from the market. “We are working on raw material security for the project and participating in auction of iron ore mines”, Jindal said.
To get hot metal for the newly installed 4 mtpa steel making module at Angul, JSPL has installed 4,554 cubic metre blast furnace at the site — claimed to be India’s largest furnace till date. The Angul steel complex of the company also has 4 mtpa sinter plant, 2mtpa coke oven, 3-mtpa steel melting shop, 1.2-mtpa plate mill, 1.4-mtpa bar mill and a 810-Mw captive power plant.