Tata Steel to set up 6 million tpa steel plant in Orissa

Saturday, 21 Aug 2004

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In a major development, Tata Iron & Steel Co submitted its proposal to Industrial Promotion & Investment Corporation of Orissa to set up a greenfield integrated steel plant at Duburi in Jajpur district of Orissa. The 6 million tpa plant, to come up in a single phase, will cost around Rs.15,000 crore.

The scope of the project includes development of iron ore mines, raw material processing, a 140 MW captive power plant, a 6 million tpa blast furnace and a steel rolling mill.

The company has sought allotment of a 2,500 acre plot at Duburi for the project. Tata Steel also plans to reclaim the mining rights to the Mankadnacha and Beliapahad mines in Sundargarh and Keonjhar district of the state. It may be recalled that the Orissa government revoked Tata Steel's mining rights after it failed to implement the Gopalpur steel project in the state. Iron ore requirements are estimated to be 500 million tonnes over a 50-year period.

The greenfield steel unit is in line with the company's vision of attaining capacity of 15 million tpa by 2010. Tata Steel is expanding its Jamshedpur steel plant capacity from 4.5 million tpa to 7.5 million tpa. Recently, it acquired NatSteel, a Singapore-based integrated steel producer.

It may be mentioned that Tata Steel had proposed to set up a 10 million tpa greenfield plant at Gopalpur in Orissa during the mid-1990s. The company later scrapped the project, even after acquiring 4,000 ha of land and spending Rs.160 crore on pre-project work.

Posco of South Korea is also very keen in setting up a 3 million tpa greenfield venture in Orissa, and is in fact, viewing the same site as a prospective location.