Tata Steel expects to commission its proposed ferroalloys plant and bar mill at its industrial park at Gopalpur by March 2013. The steel maker, which is also setting up a six million tonne per annum (mtpa) greenfield steel plant at Kalinga Nagar, expects to commission the Phase-I of the project with three mtpa capacity by March 2014.
"Our industrial park project at Gopalpur is scheduled for commissioning between October 2012 and March 2013. Similarly, the Phase-I of the Kalinga Nagar steel plant is expected to be operational between November 2013 and March 2014”, H M Nerurkar, managing director of Tata Steel told reporters after emerging out of a meeting with the state Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
"I apprised the Chief Minister on the status of our projects at Gopalpur and Kalinga Nagar. The land levelling work for the Kalinga Nagar plant is underway and the company has gradually been able to build more confidence among the locals”, he added.
B K Pattnaik, the state Chief Secretary, said, “Tata Steel has informed us that they are proceeding with the site levelling and boundary wall construction work for their industrial park project at Gopalpur. The company is also going to conduct roadshows to attract investors for the project. Tata Steel is coming up with a desalination plant at Gopalpur and we have asked the company to make arrangements for supplying water from this plant to the residents of Berhampur.”
Tata Steel, which is playing the role of an anchor tenant for an industrial park at Gopalpur, had lined up two projects- a 50,000 tonne per annum ferroalloys plant and 4,00,000 tonne per annum bar mill there.
The company would invest Rs 1,000 crore on these two projects which would initially create employment for 1000 people.
While the ferroalloys plant will cost about Rs 200 to 250 crore, the bar mill will be set up at an investment of Rs 750 to Rs 800 crore. This will be the third ferroalloys plant of Tata Steel in Orissa.
The company is operating two ferroalloys plants at Bamanipal and Athgarh (through its subsidiary Rawmet) with capacities of 50,000 tonnes per annum each.
For the bar mill, the company intends to get the ingots from Jamshedpur by rail and road. Similarly, the company will source raw material for the ferroalloys plant, which will be a backward integration project for the proposed six million tonne plant at Kalinganagar, from its chromite mines in Sukinda valley.
It may be noted Tata Steel had acquired 3,700 acres (including 500 acres for the rehabilitation colony) in mid 1990s for setting up of a 10 million tonne steel plant at Gopalpur. However, it shelved the project and the land was lying vacant.
The company later proposed to set up special economic zone (SEZ) on this patch of land and also got in principle approval from the Centre for the purpose.
Meanwhile, the company has already invested Rs 1500 crore on its Kalinga Nagar steel project.
It has placed equipment orders worth Rs 6300 crore and equipment like blast furnace and steel melting shop (SMS) have already arrived and are stored at the company's 'Incoming Material Section' spread over 40 acres within the plant site.
