The Indian steelmaker Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) has approved investment to the tune of $4.31 billion to construct a new steel mill at the existing site of its IISCO Steel Plant (ISP) in Burnpur in the eastern state of West Bengal, company sources said on Thursday, June 13.
The new steel mill will have an installed capacity of 4.08 million mt of crude steel per year and the current process of selecting vendors to implement the project is underway and will be completed by the end of October, the sources said.
The company has decided to construct a new steel mill instead of expanding the existing 2.5 million mt per year ISP, although the project will be located within the premises of the latter, the sources said.
While the existing steel mill produces long products like rebar, wire rod and bars, the new mill will produce hot rolled coils (HRC) and cold rolled coils (CRC) and is scheduled to come on stream in 2029.
The project is the first part of SAIL’s planned $13.25 billion investment to ramp up its total production capacity to 35 million mt per year from 20 million mt. This will entail greenfield and brownfield expansion across all its existing steel mills at Durgapur, Rourkela, Bhilai and Bokaro, apart from ISP.