Tata Steel today said it will add 3 million tonnes (MT) of production capacity at its Jamshedpur steel plant by 2013-14, thereby taking its total domestic steel making capacity to 10 MT.
The company currently has a total capacity of 7 MT --3 MT of long and 4 MT of flat products-- at the Jamshedpur plant. Post-expansion, the company's capacity to produce flat products will increase to 7 MT, while long production capacity will remain unchanged.
"Last year our capacity was 7 MT, this year we have expanded it to 8 MT. Next (financial) year it will go to 10 MT as we will be adding 3 MT new capacity. Current expansion is all for flat products," Company's Vice President for safety and flat products T V Narendran told reporters here.
He added that the company is ramping up the capacity gradually and has commissioned 1 MT flat products capacity this year.
Besides, Tata Steel is eyeing to earn revenues of about Rs 4,000 crore this year from a new product range of HR-coils, Tata Astrum, and is aiming to sell about a million tonnes of the product during the current year, Narendran said.
"We expect to sell about a million tonnes of steel, of Tata Astrum, next year after we ramp up the capacity. 1 MT of HR coils is some thing like Rs 4,000 crore revenues," he said.
The new product is aimed at expanding Tata Steel's base with small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which constitute about 40 per cent of India's total steel consumption, he further said.
Currently automobile firms are the major buyers of Tata Steel's flat products, accounting for about 40-45 per cent of total sales.
The company has kept a price range of Rs 40,000 per tonne to Rs 45,000 per tonne (excluding taxes) for various configurations of the new product range, which is at a 3 to 5 per cent premium to the market prices.
Flat products like plates, hot rolled coils (HR-coils), cold rolled coils (CR-coils) are semi-finished products of steel and are used by automotive, earth-moving, railways, consumer goods industries etc.
On the other hand, long products like saria, TMT bars etc are used mainly in construction sector.