BHUBANESWAR/ANGUL : Jindal Steel and Power Limited (JSPL) Chairman Naveen Jindal on Saturday said there will be a turn around in the financial condition of the company after the blast furnace starts operation at the Angul integrated steel plant within a week.
“We are confident that the worst is behind us. With the commissioning of the blast furnace, production from the Angul plant will increase and the company will start repaying its loan,” Jindal told mediapersons after launching of the six million tonne per annum capacity integrated steel plant at Angul.
The blast furnace, with a rated capacity of 4 million tonne per annum, is the latest addition to the Angul steel complex of the JSPL. With a towering height of 104 metres, the blast furnace is equipped to produce 11,000 tonnes of hot metal everyday.
With global leader Primetals UK providing the steel-making technology, the blast furnace is designed to use 100 per cent pellets and high ash coal blended with coke up to 15 per cent adding to the cost competitiveness of steel produced by the JSPL. Jindal said dependence on Indian coal will go down by 30 to 40 per cent.
The JSPL Chairman said production from the Angul plant will increase to 1.5 lakh tonne in June 2017 and reach three lakh tonne in October. He said the company faced tough times in the last three years and started making loss after the cancellation of Utkal B1 coal block. The company had already invested about `20,000 crore and wanted to set up a large steel plant by using ‘swadeshi’ material, he added.
Jindal said over a period of one year, the requirement of iron ore for the steel plant will reach 11 million tonne per annum. The iron ore mines at Tensa produce three million tonne out of which 1.5 million tonne will be used at the Angul plant.
The required iron ore will be brought to the plant through 200 km long slurry pipeline from Barbil. The construction of the pipeline will cost around `500 crore, Jindal said.
Total investment in the Angul plant is around `33,000 crore which has provided direct jobs to over 25,000 persons, 80 per cent of whom are locals. Jindal said the total loan burden of the company is `46,000 crore, of which `24,000 crore is for Angul plant. He hoped that the company will be debt-free in four to five years.