India’s Neelachal Ispat Nigam Limited (NINL), a joint venture of the government of Odisha state and government trading firm MMTC Limited, will expand its steelmaking capacity to 5 million mt per year in two phases from the current capacity of 1.1 million mt a year, an Odisha government official stated on Thursday, October 8.
The official said that in the first phase NINL will be investing $937 million to ramp up capacity to 2.2 million mt per year and in the second phase it will increase capacity further to 5 million mt per year entailing an additional investment of $1.2 billion.
A feasibility report for the expansion is currently under preparation and the project will be taken up once the report is submitted by consultants, while the expansion of the existing plant will be completed within four years starting from the date of submission of the report, the official said.
NINL is also close to securing a captive iron ore mine in the Keonjhar district in Odisha. The iron ore mine scheduled to be made operational in 2017 will bring down raw material costs for NINL and significantly increase its competitiveness in finished steel sales, the Odisha government official added.
Meanwhile, NINL’s steel mill in Odisha stopped production of steel last year and will resume production from next week following the Indian government’s decision to hike the import duty on finished steel and the imposition of 30 percent additional safeguard duty which reversed the adverse conditions that forced the company to stop steel production, the official added.