New 4 MTPA steel capacity at Angul to help JSPL turn around: Naveen Jindal

Addition at Odisha unit takes capacity to 6 MTPA; Jindal hopes to hit full utilisation next year

Jindal Steel & Power Ltd (JSPL) chairman, Naveen Jindal, said the commissioning of the four million tonne per annum (MTPA) steel capacity at the company's Angul facility in Odisha today would contribute a lot in the financial turnaround of the company.

The newly built 4 MTPA facility has taken the total steelmaking capacity at Angul to 6 MPTA and the total steel capacity of the company to 10.75 million tonne, making it the fourth largest steel producers in the country.

The company was already operating a two-MTPA unit at Angul since 2015, which produced steel through coal gasification-DRI route.

The full six-MTPA plant of JSPL was dedicated to the nation by Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Saturday.

Talking to media persons after the inauguration, Jindal said, his initial plan to come to Angul was to produce steel using the path breaking coal gasification route. But the cancellation of coal block in 2014 was a big jolt following which he has set up the second module of 4 MPTA at Angul using the blast furnace and SMS (steel melting shop) route.

"We suffered a lot due to coal block cancellation and losses (for the Angul project) have mounted to about Rs 7,000 crore to 8000 crore)", he said.

Out of total Rs 33,000 crore invested at the Angul complex till date, about Rs 24,000 crore was debt with the interest payout estimated at about Rs 200 crore per month.

"We hope the newly installed 4 MPTA steel unit will start contributing to interest payout from July onwards", he said.

Jindal said, "It will take some time to stabilise the unit. We will gradually step up production from the new unit from 60,000 tonnes this month to 150,000 tonnes in June, 200,000 tonnes in July, 300,000 tonnes in August and hope to reach the rated capacity of four MTPA in the next fiscal", he added.

The total six MTPA steel plant at Angul required about 11 million tonnes of iron ore annually. A small chunk (about 1.5 million tonnes) will come from the company's own mine at Tensa in Sundergarh district, while the rest will be procured from the market. "We are working on raw material security for the project and participating in auction of iron ore mines", Jindal said.

To get hot metal for the newly installed four MTPA steel making module at Angul, JSPL has installed 4,554 cubic meter size blast furnace at the site, claimed to be India's largest furnace till date. The Angul steel complex of the company also has four MTPA sinter plant, two MTPA coke oven, three MTPA steel melting shop, 1.2 MTPA plate mill, 1.4 MTPA bar mill and a 810 Mw captive power plant.