(BS)
JSW Steel will be investing over Rs 50,000 crore to create 10 million tonnes per annum of green steel capacity at a plant near the country’s financial capital, a top official said on Tuesday.
“We will be investing Rs 50,000-60,000 crore for the green steel capacity,” Jindal told reporters on the sidelines of an event here.
He said this will be a brownfield investment at its plant in Raigad district’s Salav and the investment will happen over the next three-four years.
In March, the company had announced plans to increase the green steel capacity at Salav to 4 MTPA in phases.
The investment is necessitated because of a European mandate on green steel, and Jindal said the 10 MTPA capacity will emit a fifth of the carbon as used by conventional plants currently.
Jindal also said that China and Vietnam are trying to dump steel into India, and expected the “vigilant” Government to slap safeguard duties to protect domestic steel makers like his company in a few days.
Denying notions of the sector being inefficient, Jindal said the sector needs investments of USD 20 billion per year and sufficient profits will be required by Indian steel makers for investing in capacity creation.
Speaking at the Indian Chamber of Commerce’s centenary year event here, Jindal said the strong steel demand on the back of high economic growth is attracting the world’s attention.
“China and Vietnam are trying to dump steel,” Jindal said, adding that the government is working on putting safeguard duties which will be in place in “a few days”.
The government is careful to ensure that there is no profiteering by steel companies, he said, explaining the reasons for having the safeguards.
China is at its peak from a steel consumption perspective and scaling back production, he said, adding that it is looking at world markets to sell the excess steel, Jindal said.
China exported 120 million tonnes of steel last year alone, he said, adding that the commodity comes via Vietnam to India.
Given the 10-12 per cent growth in demand every year, India needs to add 20 million tonnes of steel capacity per year which works out to an investment of USD 20 billion per year.
He also said that the government also wants the private sector to invest, create jobs and help in the economic growth.
The USD 24-billion group’s arm JSW Steel is aiming to be the largest steel producer in the world with a capacity of 100 million tonnes per year from the present 34.2 MTPA. He did not give a timeline by when the company would like to expand the capacity to 100 MTPA.
The diversified group is looking to manufacture battery cells in India using Chinese technology, Jindal said, adding that the group is also in touch with a Korean company for the same technology.
He said the initial public offering of JSW MG Motor India will be launched in 2-3 years, and added that the JSW Cement IPO will not be very large in size.
Indian business lost out to Vietnam in the last round, and needs to “buckle up” to make the best out of the opportunity that the current turmoil in world trade presents, he said.
Entrepreneurs need to work hard for this and must not spend time on “enjoyment”, he said. Acknowledging that the group’s spends on research and development are small, Jindal said ideally it should invest up to 5 per cent of its revenues on such efforts but wondered where would the resources come from.
