Odisha plant to be ready by early fiscal 2014, says Tata Steel

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The country's largest private sector steel-marker Tata Steel is hopeful of completing the first phase of its greenfield project at Kalinganagar in Odisha by the early part of the next fiscal.

"We hope that the first phase will be completed by the early part of FY14," managing director H.M. Nerurkar said.

The 6-million tonnes project in Odisha, which has a total project cost of Rs 23,000 crore, will be completed in phases.

While the 3-mt first phase is likely to be operational by the early part of next fiscal, the second phase with a similar capacity will be commissioned by FY15.

Chief financial officer Koushik Chatterjee said the company has a capex plan of USD2.5 billion in the current fiscal, mainly on account of Odisha project.

"We don't think there will be much of an impact of the rupee depreciation on our cost at this point of time, as a large part of the Odisha project has already been covered as far as capex is concerned," Chatterjee said.

The company, the world's seventh largest steel-maker, has already invested Rs 11,000 crore in the new plant. It expects to receive coking coal from its Benga mines project in Mozambique by next month.

The Benga mines project, a joint venture between Tata Steel and Riversdale Mining of Australia, is operational now and coal produced from this project will be utilised by Tata Steel's Europe and Asian operations.

The private steel-maker posted a 40 percent drop in its consolidated net income at Rs 5,390 crore in FY12 compared to Rs 8,983 crore in FY11, despite an 11 percent rise in income to Rs 1,32,899.70 crore.