Jindal Steel eyes buys in SE Asia

AHMEDABAD: The largest stainless steel producer in India, Jindal Stainless, has identified several steel plants in South East Asia which it is interested in acquiring. Apart from SE Asia, the company is also scouting Europe for more acquisitions. “While the hot-rolled (HR) stainless steel will be produced in India, in SE Asia and Europe we want to acquire cold-rolled (CR) steel plants,” says RK Goyal, director (commercial) of Jindal Stainless.

Jindal has already acquired a 60,000 tonnes cold-rolled steel plant in Indonesia. It is now in the process of more than doubling this capacity to 150,000 tonnes per annum (TPA) by March ’07 at an estimated investment of $12m. The company is setting up a subsidiary in Italy and has offices in Russia, the UK, USA, China and Vietnam. It will soon open offices in South Korea, Turkey, East Europe and Ukraine.

He said that the company has also submitted its proposal with the government to convert its 1.6m integrated stainless steel project coming up in Orissa with an estimated investment of over Rs 10,000 crore into a special economic zone (SEZ). This project will also include a captive coal-based power plant of 250 MW. “This plant is located close to Paradip Port, so it will be easy to export the stainless steel produced at this new plant,” says Mr Goyal.

Jindal has so far invested in excess of Rs 2,500 crore to set up ferro alloy production facilities and other infrastructure at its new Orissa-based plant. It has acquired 1,200 acres and would require a total of around 2,500 acres as per its SEZ proposal.

The company hopes to commission this plant by ’08-end. The 600,000 tpa capacity HR plant at Hissar is being expanded to 720,000 tpa through debottlenecking. Jindal is also investing about Rs 600 crore in adding another 125,000 tpa CR capacity to its existing 150,000 cold-rolled facility.