Jindal Stainless in advanced stage of finalising plan to double the plant capacity of its Jajpur and Odisha plants

With an investment capacity of Rs 2,000-3,000 crore, Jindal Stainless (JSL) is at an advanced stage of finalising a plan to double the plant capacity of its Jajpur and Odisha plants to two million tonnes per annum (mtpa) in three years.

“Currently, the Jajpur plant has 1.1 mtpa capacity. We will start working on the expansion sometime this year to increase the capacity to two mtpa in three years,” JSL’s managing director Abhyuday Jindal said. Comfortably positioned with less than one debt-equity ratio, JSL will mostly use internal accruals to fund the proposed expansion.

Though the existing location is equipped to hold further expansion up to 3.2 mtpa, but the company will take a call on enhancing capacity to the potential after stabilising the first phase of expansion and assessing the demand potential at that point of time.

At present, demand for stainless steel is very good, Jindal claimed adding that the future also holds bright for the segment.

JSL has also one manufacturing plant at Hisar in Haryana with a capacity of 0.8 mtpa. Recently, JSL has announced its plan to merge the Hisar unit with self. Once that happens, the combined entity will be among the top ten stainless steel makers in the world. The merged entity is likely to end the current fiscal with a total debt of around Rs 3,500 crore, but will have very little repayment obligation in 2021-2022 fiscal.