Usha Martin to up steel capacity to 1 mn tonne

Usha Martin plans to increase speciality steel making capacity to 1 million tonne with increased share of value-added products such as wire, wire rope, cord, bright bar, speciality wire and auto components.

According to an official release issued by Usha Martin to the BSE today, the company has already started iron ore mining operations that are being fully integrated with its steel-making operations. The company's Jharkhand coal block having high grade coal with recoverable reserve of about 30 million tonne will commence operations by end-FY07.

The capacity expansion to 1 million tonne would cost about Rs 12,000 million to be funded through a combination of debt equity and internal accruals, the release said.

The board, earlier, approved a capex plan of Rs 462 crore for capacity expansion to 0.5 million tonne, which is now a part of this capacity expansion plan. With the implementation of this capex plan, the company would become fully integrated speciality steel and value added steel product company with global in scale and cost competitiveness, the release said.

To fund the projects, the company has already tied up Rs 200 crore thru GDR and promoters warrants, the release added.