Tata Steel puts fresh acquisition on hold

Friday, 13 February 2009, 23:17 IST   |    1 Comments
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Kolkata: Steel major Tata Steel will not focus on any acquisition "for the time being", a top company official said here Friday. "We will go slow on acquisition plans. We are not looking at any new acquisition for the time being," company managing director B. Muthuraman told reporters. Tata Steel was instead focusing on its expansion programme at its Jamshedpur plant and the upcoming project in Orissa, he said. "We are going to complete the expansion programme in Jamshedpur on time. Our Orissa project is also in full swing." The company is expanding capacity at the Jamshedpur plant in Jharkhand from five million tonnes per annum to seven million tonnes in the first phase, and increase it to 10 million tonnes in the second phase by December 2010. Alongside, the company is setting up a greenfield six million-tonne steel project at Kalinganagar in Orissa's Jajpur district on an investment of 154 billion (15,400 crore). Muthuraman said raw material supply is important match the expansion in production capacity. "We have acquired few good raw material bases in Canada and Africa, those will fructify in another one or two years," he said. Last October, Tata Steel through its Singaporean arm bought 19.9 percent stake in Canadian mining company New Millenium Capital Corp giving the Indian company access to iron ore reserve in excess of 100 million tonnes. In 2007, Tata Steel has acquired 35 percent stake in Mozambique Coal, a subsidiary of Australia's Riversdale Mining.
Source: IANS