JSW plans mill, shipyard

Sajjan Jindal-controlled JSW group was close to roping in foreign partners for its Rs 2,000 crore platemill project and Rs 1,600 crore shipyard at Ratnagiri in Maharashtra.

Sajjan Jindal said, a joint venture company would be formed for the platemill project with a Japanse partner and for the shipyard, one of the largest shipbuilders would be roped in. In both the projects, Jindal would have a majority stake.

Jindal said, the deal with the partners was likely to be closed in two months' time. This would be the first time that the company was partnering with a foreign player.

The JSW group's investment in the platemill project would be through JSW Steel while the investment in the shipyard would be by JSW Infrastructure and Logistics.

JSW Infrastructure is a new company floated by the group and would handle all infrastructure related projects of the group. The company is already building a port in Goa, Kakinada (in Andhra Pradesh)and could be a candidate for a deep sea port in Bengal. A Rs 1,000 crore port had also been lined up for Ratnagiri.

Jindal said, the company would also handle township development, water supply, among other activities. The slabs for the shipyard and platemill projects would come from JSW Bengal Steel, which is setting up a 10 million tonnes plant at Salboni. The first phase of six million tonnes would be onstream by June 2011. Around 1.5 million tonnes slabs from Bengal would go to the facilities acquired in the US.

Jindal said, the iron ore for the project was likely to be fed by the eight blocks acquired in Chile.

He explained, there were two options, the ore could be transported to the Bengal plant. Alternatively the company could export the ore to China and USA and buy ore from the spot market in India.

JSW Steel recently announced acquisition of eight concessions in a greenfield area through its Netherlands-based wholly owned subsidiary for exploration and exploitation of magnetite deposits in the region of Atacama, north of Chile.

Jindal said, two of the mines were fully explored and the balance would have to be developed. JSW Steel, which has around 30 per cent raw material security is still scanning the globe for more iron ore resources.

JSW Energy has filed an application with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) for its Rs 4,000 crore initial public offering (IPO).