India's state-run steelmaker Steel Authority of
India Limited (
SAIL) plans a second phase expansion entailing an investment of $24 billion to ramp up capacity to 45 million mt per year by 2020, company chairman and managing director C S Verma said in a press conference on Tuesday, July 10.
Accordingly,
SAIL will next year complete its ongoing $12.90 billion expansion project to increase
steelmaking capacity to 24 million mt per year from the current level of 12.84 million mt per year.
SAIL has already begun negotiations on the second phase of capacity expansion through brownfield and greenfield projects to be completed by 2020, Mr. Verma said.
Works on the second phase expansion will start next year, immediately after the completion of the ongoing expansion project, he added.
SAIL operates five integrated steel plants at Bokaro, Rourkela, Durgapur, Bhilai and IISCO Steel Plant in Burnpur. As per the initial plans, except for IISCO Steel Plant, the capacity of all other four plants will be expanded in the second phase project.
The capacity of Bokaro Steel Plant will be increased to 16.75 million mt per year from 4.62 million mt per year, Durgapur Steel Plant's annual capacity will rise to 8.8 million mt from 2.2 million mt, while details of expansion of other plants including Bhilai will be settled shortly.