State-owned steel maker Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL) will commission a 3 million tonnes (MT) capacity blast furnace next month, taking its total production capacity to 6.3 MT per year, a top company official said.
"Next month, we are going to commission the main blast furnace of 3 million tonnes. This will be a major milestone for us and would complete the current phase of expansion," RINL Chairman A P Choudhary said.
Stating that the company has invested about Rs 18,000 crore on capacity expansion, he said that this includes additional 1-MTPA capacity, to be added by the end of next fiscal.
"This 1-MTPA capacity is being added through modernisation and upgradation of existing producing units. After this, our total capacity would increase further to 7.3 MTPA," Choudhary added.
Besides, the Vishakhapatnam-based steelmaker is also looking to set up a new unit, meant to produce flat products, of 4-MTPA capacity in the near future.
"We have appointed a consultant for that (new 4-MTPA capacity) and the Board is already deliberating the issue. This will take our total capacity to 11.3 MT and would require an investment of around 22,000 crore," the RINL Chairman said, though did not gave any time frame for its implementation.
Most of the money for the project is planned to be raised through market borrowings, he added.
Moreover, the company is also looking to venture into manufacturing of electrical steel, he said, adding that the proposed unit would CRGO (cold rolled grain-oriented silicon) and CRNO (cold rolled non-grain oriented silicon) varieties.
The proposed facility will initially produce 1.5 lakh tonnes a year of CRGO and one lakh tonnes of CRNO and RINL will soon issue an expression of interest (EoI) to seek technology partners for the project, Choudhary said.
BHEL, MOIL and Power Grid Corporation may be the likely partners for the proposed venture and would require an investment of about Rs 3,000 crore, an industry source said.
For the current year, the state-owned steel maker has set a target to achieve Rs 15,000 crore turnover in the next fiscal and has kept a capex of Rs 1,942 crore for the same.
