ESL Steel capacity expansion by next year: Vedanta's Sunil Duggal

Mining giant says priority is to finish doubling capacity of company it acquired in June 2018

The capacity expansion of ESL Steel will be completed by next year, Sunil Duggal, group chief executive officer, Vedanta, said on Tuesday.

The priority is to finish doubling capacity from 1.5 million tonnes to 3 mt, Duggal said in response to a question on whether the company was looking to sell ESL. As on date, this is not a topic, he said on the sidelines of a press conference to announce the Global Mining Summit.

An investor presentation of Vedanta in August said completing ESL’s expansion was slated for the end of FY23. ESL was also looking to increase the share of value-added products to one mt by FY24 from 0.8 mt in FY22, it said. ESL, it may be mentioned, is into long products used in the construction and infrastructure sectors.

Vedanta entered the steel sector by acquiring Electrosteel Steels in June 2018 under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) and commissioned a 1.2 mt plant in Jharkhand. The capacity was ramped up to 1.5 mt as the company was renamed ESL Steel.

Electrosteel was among the earliest bankrupt steel assets to be auctioned under IBC in 2018, apart from Bhushan Steel, Bhushan Power & Steel, Monnet Ispat & Energy and Essar Steel. While Vedanta bagged Electrosteel for Rs 5,320 crore, Tata Steel acquired Bhushan Steel; JSW Steel got Bhushan Power & Steel and ArcelorMittal and Nippon Steel jointly acquired Essar Steel; JSW Steel and AION acquired Monnet Ispat & Energy.