Tata Steel Puts Break on Indian Steel Plant Expansion

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): Tata Steel has slowed down the ongoing expansion at Kalinganagar steel plant in the east-Indian state of Odisha. The groundbreaking of the company’s expansion project aimed at raising the plant capacity by 5 million tons per annum was held earlier in November 2018.

According to company press release, the commissioning of the expanded capacities will be delayed. However, it has not provided the updated completion of expansion project. The project was initially planned to be completed within 4 years, by the end of 2022. The integrated steel producer has blamed muted growth in domestic steel demand as the reason for the delay in the expansion project.

Tata Steel announced that the commissioning of the cold-milling mill and pellet plant will be achieved in fiscal year 2020-’21. The commissioning of the pellet plant will help the company to cuts costs by reducing its dependence on purchases of third-party pellets.

Meantime, the company hopes that steel is likely to witness demand growth in 2020-21 fiscal, mainly on the back of increased infrastructure spending and improved economic growth conditions. A sustained growth, as anticipated, would result in acceleration of the Kalinganagar plant expansion, it said.