TATA Steel expansion plan on full swing

TATA Steel recently said that its expansion plan is going on full swing and has no plan to scale down production despite softening of commodity prices across the world. Dr JJ Irani director of TATA Sons said that "TATA Steel expansion going on in full swing. There is no plan to cut down production." He said that "We are in for difficult period but ongoing projects would come. Money should not be a problem.” Recently, the steel producer announced setting up of a new blast furnace at its Jamshedpur unit as part of the INR 14,000 crore brown field expansions to augment its production capacity to 10 million tonne in over 2 years. The 'I blast furnace' which would have a capacity to make 3.05 million tonne of hot metal per annum is likely to be commissioned by November 2010. In addition to increasing the capacity of its existing unit, the steel major is in process of setting up Greenfield projects in Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh. While in Jharkhand it proposes to invest about INR 42,000 crore for a 12 million tonne integrated steel plant in Orissa it intends to pump in nearly INR 22,000 crore for a 6 million tonne unit.