Jindal Steel and Power today said it will start commercial production from the Shadeed Iron & Steel plant in Oman, which it acquired recently for $464 million, by the last quarter of the current fiscal.
"We will commission the plant during the January-March period of the current financial year," JSPL Director Sushil Maroo told PTI. The under-construction plant was acquired as part of the domestic firm's plans to expand its operations overseas.
"Capacity utilisation of the plant would be ramped up to 80 per cent by 2012," he added. Shadeed is a 1.5 million tonnes a year, gas-based, hot briquetted iron plant in the Sohar Industrial Port area of the country. Al Ghaith Holdings of the UAE sold Shadeed to the Indian firm.
JSPL, the nation's second-biggest steel producer by market value, is undertaking expansion of its steel operations in India, which includes setting up new gas-based steel units.
At present, JSPL has an annual steel production capacity of 3 million tonnes in Chhattisgarh. The size of the plant is being doubled at an estimated investment of Rs 10,000 crore. The company is also investing an estimating Rs 44,000 crore on two upcoming plants in Orissa and Jharkhand.
Shadeed Iron was the first overseas steel acquisition by a domestic firm since 2007, when Tata Steel Ltd bought UK-based Corus for $12.9 billion and Essar Group spent $1.63 billion to buy Algoma Steel Inc. Jindal Steel is expanding in the Middle East to tap adjacent markets.
"It is a port-based plant. It will be gateway for us to growing markets. We will also ship the products to India and China from the plant," he added.
The Naveen Jindal-led firm had resumed work on its $2.1-billion project in Bolivia, another major international venture, in August. The company is building a 1.7 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) steel plant, a 6 MTPA sponge iron unit and 10 MTPA iron ore pellet plant in that country.