Domestic steel giant Tata Steel will invest Rs 8,000 crore in capital expenditure on its India operations during the current financial year, the company's CEO and Managing Director T V Narendran said.
The amount will be spent mainly towards completion of the expansion of the Kalinganagar plant, and expansion of mining operations and recycling business, he told PTI replying to a question related to Tata Steel's plans for India business in the financial year 2022.
This is in addition to the Rs 3,000 crore the company will spend on its European operations to make the business strong, sustainable and enhance product mix.
"Our capex will be broadly Rs 8,000 crore for India. We stand by that guidance.
"A lot of it will be going towards Kalinganagar expansion. We will also be spending on our raw material because we continue to expand our iron ore mining capabilities to support the Kalainganagar expansion. So, in raw material and Kalinganagar...we will cover this Rs 8,000 crore," Narendran said.
Tata Steel is in the process to expand the capacity of its plant in Kalinganagar, Odisha, by five million tonne per annum (MTPA) to eight MTPA.
Recently, the CEO informed that Tata Steel has outlaid a capital expenditure of Rs 3,000 crore for its operations in Europe.
When asked if Tata Steel will explore markets to set up recycling plants and part of the Rs 8,000-crore capex will be utilised for the same, he said the company follows a different business model in scrap.
It is in partnership, he added.
"Whatever we need to spend, it will be part of that; but we also have a different model operating in scrap. There are partners dealing to set up the facilities. They will set up, we will manage the quality and sell the steel. It will be a partnership model," he said.
Narendran also said Tata Steel is looking at western and southern regions as more scrap is available there.
"We have to set up these facilities where more scrap is available. The work is being done by the team," he said.
On August 18, Tata Steel announced commissioning its first steel recycling plant in Rohtak, Haryana.
The plant, having an annual capacity of 0.5 MTPA, has been set up in collaboration with Aarti Green Tech Ltd as a build-own-operate partner.
