JSW Steel to start electrical steel production

India-based steelmaker JSW Steel has announced that it will start producing electrical steel in line with the strategy of increasing its portfolio of value-added products. The company is planning to build an electrical steel facility with an annual capacity of 600,000 mt at its Vijayanagar steelworks.
 
JSW stated that the present domestic demand for electrical steel is about 500,000 mt per year and is expected to double by 2016-17. The new facility will initially produce 400,000-500,000 mt of cold rolled non-grain-oriented electrical steel. The company also plans to produce cold rolled grain-oriented electrical steel in future. JSW aims to become the largest electrical steel producer in India.
 
According to the statement, the first phase of the facility, expected to be commissioned in the next 24 months once the necessary approvals are received, will produce 200,000 mt per year of cold rolled non-grain-oriented electrical steel.
 
JSW and the Japanese steelmaker JFE Steel, already in a strategic collaboration agreement for automotive steel manufacturing, now plan to extend this collaboration to electrical steel.