Tata Steel today said its Rs 15,000 crore new production line at Jamshedpur plant will go on stream by July-September 2011, increasing the total capacity to 10 million tonne annually.
"Our Jamshedpur plant will have an annual production capacity of 10 million tonne by the second quarter of next fiscal," Tata Steel Vice Chairman B Muthuraman told reporters here.
The global steel major is enhancing production capacity from 6.8 million tonnes per annum to 10 million tonnes per annum, with an investment of Rs 15,000 crore.
The company is ramping up the capacity of flat steel items -- consumed mainly by automobile and consumer durables industries -- to 5.83 million tonne from the current 3.04 million tonne.
The expansion is part of the steel major's plans to take its annual capacity to 16 million tonne by 2014 at an investment of around Rs 40,000 crore. The projects will be funded by a mix of debt and internal accruals.
On steel prices, Muthuraman said that he expects the demand and prices to remain stable in the next few months. However, he added that volatility in raw material prices will take some time to stabilise.
In June this year, Tata Steel had said that its expansion project had received clearance from the Ministry of Forest and Environment.