With the groundbreaking ceremony performed on December 31, Indian steelmaker Tata Steel has begun work on increasing the annual production capacity of its Jamshedpur plant from its current level of five million mt up to 10 million mt by 2010. Upon completion, the plant will be the most modern and the single largest steel manufacturing plant in the world.
Tata Steel's capacity expansion project includes the augmentation of mines, the establishment of a six million mt per annum pellet plant, and the expansion of capacity at West Bengal-based Hooghly Metcoke from 1.2 million mt to 1.6 million mt.
The project is foreseen to be finalized by December 2010.
In addition, Tata Steel is trying to add 23 million mt to its current annual capacity through its three greenfield steel projects in Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh.