India’s Tata Steel Limited is in expansion mode but is not keen on any new acquisition of existing steel assets, company chief executive officer T. V. Narendran said in a statement on Tuesday, August 15.
“We are not acquiring any new steel businesses. We do not need it,” he said.
He said that Tata Steel has already drawn up plans to ramp up installed steelmaking capacity at its domestic steel mills to 40 million mt from 22 million mt by 2030.
The disinterest in acquisition in effect rules out Tata Steel’s participation in bidding for the steel businesses of Vedanta Limited, NMDC Steel Limited’s (NSL) greenfield steel mill project or the privatization of government-run steel producer Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL).
Vedanta Limited, which had acquired ESL Limited’s steelmaking assets in 2018 through the bankruptcy resolution process, has announced that it is looking to divest its steel business.
The Indian government has also decided to divest its controlling stake in the 3 million mt greenfield steel mill project of NSL Limited which has just commenced production and privatization of the 7.3 million mt capacity Vishakhapatnam steel mill of RINL.
Narendran said that Tata Steel is still engaged with the UK government to find a solution for the company’s operations in that country and attempts were on “to find common ground with the UK government”.
He said that there was no problem with production at the UK mill and that the only challenge was that the upstream assets were too old and the reliability of the equipment was “not so great”.
The company is seeking £1.5 billion in funding to decarbonize the operations of the UK mill.
