The Tata Steel has no intention for going into a third phase green field expansion in near future, said Managing Director Indian and South East Asia TV Narendran while speaking to mediapersons here.

“We have already invested Rs25,000 crore for the green field steel plant at Kalinganagar at different time. Building new capacities is not immediately on our agenda,” he said.

Replying to a query, he said that the Jamshedpur Steel Plant is of 3 million steelmaking capacity while Kalinganagar is of 3 million. Narendran further informed that they have received green signal to add 1 million ton to Jamshedpur. Brown field expansion (Jamshedpur) is more cost effective than the green field expansion which is expensive but then Kalinganagar has certain advantages over the Jamshedpur steel plant, which is of the old model type, he maintained.

 “We have 2,000 acres of land at present and we are going to have 1,000 acres more after which we are going to galvanise our activities towards production. However, we are happy with the ramp up, since the plant was commissioned at Kalingamagar,” he said.

Tata Steel is also looking at OMC for its iron ore as and when required, as today the cost of iron ore is not much different from the cost of the mining iron ore, the MD said.

Replying to a further query, Narendran said that Kalinganagar Tata Steel has started exporting ferroshots and hot rolled coils. Kalinganagar will also export to other South East Asian countries like its mother plant at Jamshedpur, he added. The Tata Steel MD was optimistic of reaching new breakthroughs at Kalinganagaar within the next six months after the end of fiscal year.

Narendran let out an air of robust optimism when he appeared unperturbed about competitors both at home and abroad like its Chinese counterparts. The growing demands in India provide an ideal market at home. India is a more exciting market from demand point of view, he observed. Indian steel industry is very competitively positioned in the market which has some support in form of import duties or anti-dumping duties or safeguard duties. Hence, the profitability will increase, said Narendran.

On the further extension of minimum import price of steel, Tata Steel MD said the prices in India will be determined by the demand-supply situation. It will certainly give the industry some respite against cheap imports.

Regarding extension of MIP after October 30, Narendran said the Government is looking at it more comprehensively as there are anti-dumping duty, safeguard duty and MIP. “We hope the Government is looking at it holistically and comes out with a solution which will be received with aplomb in the industry as it will address the problem and the predicaments of the industry.  Prominent among others present in the Press meet were Vice-President (Operation) Rajiv Kumar and MD, SEZ Arun Mishra.