Tata Steel to kick start production at Kalinganagar unit by last quarter of FY15

Production from the much discussed Tata Steel’s Kalinganagar plant in Odisha will commence from the last quarter of the FY2015. The project is Tata Steel’s second integrated unit after Jamshedpur, where the steel major recently completed its Brownfield expansion to enhance the capacity to 10 MTPA.

The Kalinganagar unit will produce flat products which will be mainly utilized in the automobile and consumer durable sector. However, the demand index of the flat products posted an unsatisfactory performance in the last fiscal. Despite this subdued performance by the flat products in the economic growth, TV Narendran, Managing Director, Tata Steel, maintains an optimistic outlook for the steel demand to pick up by the next fiscal by 6 percent. “India’s GDP for the next year is projected at 5-7% and typically the steel demand grows by 1.2-1.3 percent of the GDP growth. Hence, if our GDP escalates to 5%, then I am expecting the demand to grow by 6%,” opined Narendran.

The Kalinganagar project involves 3 MTPA capacity in the first phase and is planned to be doubled in the next phase.