SAIL to spend Rs 14,340 crore on capacity expansion

Steel Authority of India (SAIL) in the current fiscal year ending March, is planning to spend around Rs 14,340.00 crore ($2.9 billion) on various capacity expansion projects. By March 2013, the company’s plan is to expand total steelmaking capacity at its five integrated plants across India to 21.4 million tones. This investment is the part of the company’s expansion programme. The investment will be on several projects to add blast furnaces, cold rolling mills and coke oven batteries.

Recently, the company was planning to increase production from its iron ore mines to 38 million tonnes, in line with the company's Rs 70,000-crore mega expansion plan to produce over 23 million tonnes of hot metal by 2012-13. At present the company makes about 13 million tonnes.

SAIL is India’s largest state-owned iron ore producer established in 1954. It is one the leading steel-making company in India. It has country’s second largest mines network. All plants of SAIL are ISO certified.