Leading steel maker Tata Steel today said it will take its annual production capacity to 16 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) by 2014 at an estimated investment of about Rs 40,000 crore.
"We will expedite the pace of our greenfield projects and plan to take our capacity to 16 MTPA by 2014," Tata Steel Vice-President (Corporate Services) Partha Sengupta told reporters here.
Currently, the company has a capacity of 6.8 MTPA of steel products at its facility here.
Tata Steel has already ordered equipment for its Orissa project where it plans to set up a 3 MTPA unit. The state government currently is in the process of acquiring 4,800 acres for the plant.
"We have already ordered equipment and machinery for our Kalinganagar Project in Orissa, which has a capacity of 3 MT flat products," he said.
For the Chhattisgarh project, about 70 per cent of the required land has already been acquired. Tata Steel will produce 3 MT of long products, used mainly by construction firms, in the first phase of the project, Sengupta said.
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Iron ore linkages for the project has already been assured from the Bailadila mines,the company said.
About the company's expansion plans in the existing facility here, Tata Steel spokesperson said the production capacity would be increased to 10 MTPA by March 2010 and that and the company was not facing any liquidity crunch to complete the project.
Terming the prevailing downturn, "as the best time to expand", Tata Steel officials said the targeted production capacity would be achieved on time.
Tata Steel recently increased prices of some of its products and said that with global prices rising, the company is hopeful of better returns in coming months.