Tatas awaiting ore allocation to start work on K'taka plant

In January, the company announced plan a six million tonne per annum steel with Rs 30,000 cr investment

Tata Steel has said it will start work on the proposed plant in Karnataka only after getting the allocation of an iron ore mine that has at least 300 million tonnes of reserves.

"We have identified the land, something like 2,400 acres, in Karnataka. People have agreed to give us the land. We are waiting for the iron ore allocation to be done. Unless iron ore is available to us, we are not going to start work," Tata Steel Managing Director H M Nerurkar told PTI.

In January, the company announced plan to set up a six million tonne per annum (mtpa) steel plant with Rs 30,000 crore investment in Haveri district of the southern state. It proposed to build the facility in two equal phases.

Nerurkar said the state government was considering the proposal for an iron ore mine which has reserves of at least 300 million tonnes, sufficient to meet the raw material demand for at least 30 years of the plant life.

"The state government is considering our proposal. I think it should happen shortly, that is what our understanding is. Unless we have the surety of raw material supply, we are not going to go (start)," he said.

Tata Steel has 6.8 mtpa capacity at its Jamshedpur plant. It is increasing the capacity at the plant by three mtpa. In addition, it's three mtpa capacity through a new facility at Kalinganagar in Odisha is set to go on stream in 2014.

Nerurkar hinted that the company is unlikely to face any problem with regard to land acquisition for the plant

He said the people from the identified area of the proposed facility have already visited Tata Steel's Jamshedpur plant and were satisfied with the way the company looks after the people in areas adjoining the mines and the plant.

"People are comfortable. They know how we will look after them," Nerurkar said.

Asked what would be the product-mix in the new plant, he said, "We have not finalised that yet. Once we have the surety of iron ore and finalise the land acquisition, we will decide all these."