Coal news and updates

JSW tweaks Salboni strategy, power plant to come up first

November 15: JSW Steel is planning to set up a power plant of 660 MW at Salboni shortly, which will precede its prospective steel plant here.

JSW Bengal Steel Joint Managing Director Biswadip Gupta said: "Since we already have the coal linkage, we plan to set up the thermal power unit first instead of the steel plant which will follow later."

He added that the initial investment for the power plant will be Rs 4,000-5,000 crore.

Gupta further added: "We have to do some changes in the initial agreement to facilitate the new plan which includes the setting up of the thermal power plant first instead of the steel plant."

Consequently, the company will have to make the necessary changes in the memorandum of understanding and lease agreement.

The company has currently been allotted coal mines at Asansol and Ranigung in West Bengal. The total annual production capacity is likely to be 2 mt per annum from these coal blocks. The company has already applied for the necessary clearances, which also includes environmental clearances.

"We plan to start work on this project by March 2014," Gupta said.

JSW Steel, which earlier had planned to set up a 3 mt steel plant in the first phase at Salboni in West Bengal, already has the necessary infrastructure like the boundary wall and human resource for the project. The company was not being able to get financial closure for the prospective plant because of non-availability of iron ore and iron ore mines.

Iron ore is not available in West Bengal, where the project is located. The company had thus approached iron ore-rich Odisha and Jharkhand. However, these two states have indicated that they want a beneficiation plant at the steel plant site to allow extraction of iron ore.