Jindal Stainless (JSL), India’s largest stainless steel producer, has decided to go slow on its Rs 2,887-crore ($600 million) overseas projects. It has also decided to delay its Rs 10,000-crore expansion plan in India following a slump in demand for the alloy amid global economic slowdown.
“With demand for stainless steel going down, we would now go slow on the overseas projects and delay commencement of the proposed integrated plant in Orissa by a year,” Jindal Stainless Director, Corporate Affairs, N C Mathur said.
The company has proposed setting up a 260,000-tonne ferro-nickel plant in Indonesia and a 60,000-tonne ferro- chrome unit in Vietnam. It is also in the process of setting up a 1.6-million-tonne integrated stainless steel plant in Orissa.
JSL has already invested about Rs 3,000 crore for putting up a 450,000-tonne coke oven, 250,000 tonnes ferro-manganese and ferro-chrome units besides a 250-MW power plant as part of the first phase of the proposed project in Orissa.
The company further plans to pump in about Rs 6,000 crore to reach a production capacity of 800,000 tonnes and then 1 .6 million tonnes in the third and last phase with an additional investment of around Rs 1,000 crore.
JSL had earlier planned to reach the optimum production capacity by 2010, which has now been delayed to 2011.
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“The plant in Orissa is primarily meant to cater to the global market, but as demand for stainless steel is on a low amid the financial crisis, we have delayed commissioning of the optimum capacity by a year to 2011,” Mathur said.
With stainless steel demand declining the world over and leading to piling up of inventories, JSL has approached the government for initiating anti-dumping duty on shipments of the alloy from countries such as China.