JSW Vijayanagar Works to increase capacity

JSWSteel today announced its plan to increase the annual steel manufacturing capacity of JSW Vijayanagar Works to 13 million tonnes per annum by March 2020 at an investment of Rs 7,500 crores

In a press release, the firm said it has also launched various other upgradation and augmentation projects which were expected to result in substantial cost savings in operations over thelong-term.

The capacity expansion and upgrade projects being implemented at JSW Vijayanagar Works would entail a capital investment of Rs 7,500 crore until March2020, the release said.

At 12 million tonnes per annum currently, JSW Vijayanagar Works, located in the Ballari-Hospet iron ore belt, 380 kms from here, is said to be the largest state-of-the-art single location steel manufacturing unit in the country.

 

Listing out the projects initiated as part of the steel manufacturing capacity expansion at JSW Vijayanagar Works unit, the release said that its current project to revamp and upgrade capacity of blast furnace-3 at JSW Vijayanagar Works is on track, which would improve hot metal availability.

The company would modify and enhance capacity of its steel melting shop, the flat and long products mills, along with allied facilities to utilise this additional hot metal, the release said.

With these projects targeted to becompleted by March 2020, the crude steel capacity of JSW Vijayanagar Works unit would increase to 13 million tonnes per annum, it said.

Also, the company would set up a 1.5 million tonnes per annum coke ovenplant in Vijayanagar to bridge the current and expected gapsin coke availability and it is likely to be commissioned by March 2020, the release said.

The coke oven unit is expected to provide significantcost savings for the company over the longer term, it said.

"The new capacity creation at JSW Vijayanagar Works'steel manufacturing unit supports our growth planswhile further improving the efficiency of our manufacturingoperations," JSW Steel deputy managing director Dr Vinod Nowalsaid.

JSW Steel also said it had commenced operations in two iron ore mines (Tunga & Nandi Mines) in Karnataka for which ithas received statutory clearance and thecumulativecapacity of the two iron ore mines was 0.71 million tonnes per annum.

For the remaining three mines, JSW Steel expects statutory clearances and approvals during the current fiscal, it said, adding that the annual production capacity of the fivemines acquired by JSW Steel through the 2017 auction, was approximately 4.66 million tonnes per annum.

Once all five mines get operational, they were expected to fulfil approximately 20 per cent of the iron ore requirement of JSW Vijayanagar Works' unit.

As part of its growth strategy, the company said it was focused on enriching its product mix by increasing the share of value-added and special steel products.

Considering the growth potential of the products, the company is expanding the capacity of CRM-1 complex at Vijayanagar Works from 0.8 to one million tonnes per annum as well as settingup a 0.3 million tonnes per annum colour- coated line.