B. Muthuraman, the managing director of Indian steel giant Tata Steel (Tata), has stated that the company, which includes Nat Steel Asia and Millenium Steel in addition to Corus, expects to post a turnover of $25 billion by the end of March 2008 since the Corus acquisition came into force on April 3, 2007, and that, as a result, the effect of the acquisition will be seen on Tata's balance sheet for FY 2007-08.
B. Muthuraman also said that the construction work on the company's six million mt greenfield plant at Kalinganagar in Orissa will commence in the next three months and is likely to be completed 2010 at an investment cost of $508 million.
As previously reported by SteelOrbis, Tata has already begun work on increasing the annual production capacity of its Jamshedpur plant to 10 million mt, with the groundbreaking ceremony performed on December 31. The project in question is scheduled to be finalized in 2010 as well.
Speaking about Tata's greenfield projects in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, B. Muthuraman said that the latter was facing problems as regards land acquisition, while the former was held up due to a delay by the state government in announcing a rehabilitation and resettlement policy. Therefore, he said they only hoped to start work in Chhattisgarh in 2008, with finalization expected in 2012, whereas work in Jharkhand is likely to commence in 2009, with commissioning scheduled for 2013.
In addition to Tata's four ongoing projects, namely Orissa, Jamshedpur, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, B. Muthuraman also disclosed a new project in Gopalpur, where Tata already owns land. The company is planning to establish a galvanizing and color coating line with an output capacity of 150,000 mt at a cost of $64 million.
With regard to acquiring iron ore assets, B. Muthuraman said that the company recently acquired a 75 percent stake in ore deposits in Ivory Coast in order to guarantee a long-term raw material supply to Corus. However, he did not give any further information as to whether the company will acquire its own iron ore mines in Brazil or not.