Jindal Stainless to increase capacity to 700,000 mt

Indian steelmaker Jindal Stainless announced plans to increase the capacity of its Hisar plant to 700,000 mt by March 2007 from 550,000 mt last year with an investment of around Rupees 800 million ($17.2 million) due to rising demand for stainless steel. The company is also planning to establish a greenfield unit at Dubri with an initial investment of Rupees 21.75 billion ($467 million). In the first phase, the company will set up facilities for a ferro-alloy unit, coke oven and a 250 MW captive power plant. It is also exploring a fully integrated plant with a capacity in excess of 1.4 million mt per annum. "The decision on the fully integrated plant will be taken by the end of the current financial year based on progress of backward linkages. We will finalize the financial model, process and agreements this year," Arvind Parakh, Jindal Stainless Finance Director, said. "We are looking at small companies based in Europe to whom we can supply hot bands and set up cold rolling units," Parakh said. Jindal Stainless exports 45 percent of its production to Chinese, South East Asian, EU and the US markets.