| "This acquisition may be much larger than the one we did in Indonesia," Jindal Stainless executive vice-president (commercial), R K. Goyal told Business Standard. |
| Jindal Stainless produces 750,000 tonnes of hot-rolled stainless steel per annum at Hissar in Haryana. At the same time, its capacity to produce value added cold-rolled steel is only 100,000 tonnes per annum. The acquisition in Indonesia has given the company additional cold-rolling facility of 50,000 tonnes per annum. This leaves a gap of 600,000 tonnes. |
| In the past, Jindal Stainless tried to cover the deficit by acquiring the Salem stainless steel plant of the public sector Steel Authority of India Ltd. But with the steel cycle improving, Sail has put the sale of the unit on the backburner. |
| According to Goyal, Jindal Stainless has drawn up plans to double its cold-rolling capacity at Hissar to 200,000 tonnes per annum and raise the capacity of its Indonesian facility to 120,000 tonnes with an investment of $15-20 million. |
| Still, the company's cold-rolling capacity would fall 430,000 tonnes short of its hot-rolling capacity. To cover the gap, Jindal Stainless is looking at acquiring some existing facilities in East Asia. "We are looking at these countries as we also need to be close to our customers," Goyal added. |
| Jindal Stainless sends 70-80 per cent of its exports to East Asian countries including China. |
| The company's export in the third quarter of this financial year was Rs 335.37 crore, against Rs 245.92 crore in the comparable quarter of the previous financial year. Exports in the quarter represented 36.76 per cent of total sales of 912.25 crore. For the whole of 2003-04, the company exported steel worth Rs 1134.82 crore. |
| When asked if Jindal Stainless would also look at China for acquisitions, Goyal said that there were no existing facilities available there. "In China, one has to put up a greenfield capacity," he added. |
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