JSW Steel shuts down 2 furnaces in Vijayanagar

As a direct fallout of the iron ore mining scam in Karnataka, JSW Steel today said it had closed down two blast furnaces of about 2.3 million tonnes steel production capacity at its Vijayanagar plant in Bellary district due to the unavailability of iron ore.

"I can confirm that two blast furnaces have been shut down as there is no iron ore available. Our production has gone down by 35 to 40%," JSW Steel Director (Commercial and Marketing) Jayant Acharya said.

He added that depending up on the availability of iron ore, the company would decide when to re-start the blast furnaces.

However, the JSW Marketing Director refused to comment on the extent of losses due to the production cuts.

"We would not like to quantify it at this juncture," Acharya said.

JSW Steel, whose iron ore requirement stands at about 60,000 tonnes per day, sources about half of its requirement from the Bellary-Hospet region in the state and has about two-three days stock left.

Last Friday, the Supreme Court had ordered suspension of all iron ore mining operations in the Bellary region on account of environmental degradation in the area. Steel and allied industries have said that this would lead to closure of their operations as they have no stock left.

Yesterday, Tata Metaliks, a subsidiary of Tata Steel, said due to the paucity of iron ore, it may close down its 2 lakh tonnes per annum pig iron plant in Goa in a week as the plant is dependent on iron ore supplies from the Bellary-Hospet belt in Karnataka.