India’s NMDC Limited has once again deferred the commissioning of its 3 million mt greenfield steel mill project in the central state of Chhattisgarh, company sources said on Monday, April 24.
NMDC Limited, which is implementing the steel mill project through NMDC Steel Limited, was scheduled to commission the mill by March 31, but has now deferred the start of production to the end of June this year, the sources said.
The company sources said that the mill is expected to notch up production of 200,000-300,000 mt of flat products in the fiscal year 2023-24 and that “achieving full capacity utilization would take time”.
The delay in commissioning the mill will have a spill-over effect on the government’s plans to divest a 50.79 percent equity stake in NMDC Steel Limited in favour of a private investor, the sources said.
The government has already received a number of responses to the expression of interest (EoI) floated in January this year for divestment of the equity stake, and the divestment will be pushed forward only after commissioning of the mill to secure better valuation of the asset.
If the new end-of-June deadline for commissioning the mill is achieved, the government will target completion of privatization of the asset within the first half of the fiscal year 2023-24, the sources said.