Tata BlueScope to double capacity at Jamshedpur unit

Tata BlueScope Steel, the equal joint venture between Tata Steel and BlueScope Steel, will double capacity at its upcoming facility in Jamshedpur.

Harish Pathak, managing director, Tata BlueScope Steel, said that the company plans to double capacity of the Jamshedpur facility, which will be inaugurated in August 2009. But the timing for raising capacity will be decided in the next 2-3 months, depending on the market condition.

The Jamshedpur facility will go onstream in August with a capacity of 250,000 tonnes of premium zinc and aluminium coated steel called Zincalume and pre-painted zinc and aluminium coated steel called Colorbond. The joint venture company has invested around Rs 900 crore in setting up the plant.

According to Pathak, investment for doubling the capacity could be a little less since land and required infrastructure are already available. The investment will be made in equal proportion by both the partners.

Typically, it will take one and a half years to set up the project.

Tata BlueScope Steel has already set up building solutions facilities in Pune, Chennai and Bhiwadi. The joint venture also services the Saarc countries from India and Sri Lanka. Tata BlueScope has acquired one of the BlueScope facilities in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan plant has a capacity of 1,000 tonnes a month.

According to industry sources, the demand for coated steel in India is around 2.7 lakh tonnes with a potential of going up to one million tonnes.

Tata BlueScope has been importing some of the Zincalume requirements from the southeast Asia-based BlueScope facilities.

Tata BlueScope has two business divisions – the buildings division, which is further divided into building solutions and building products and distribution; and the coated steel division.