JSW Steel has planned fresh investment in adding tinplate capacity, which may help it overtake Tata Steel that has controlled the market for nearly a century through its subsidiary, Tinplate Company of India.
In the last financial year, JSW Steel spent Rs 575 crore in building a 2.5-lakh-tonne tinplate mill with related facilities at its Tarapur unit. The company has decided to set up another mill of similar capacity at an estimated cost of Rs 419 crore at the same location. The company cited increasing demand for the sheet, used for making packaging material and other products, for adding capacity.
The proposed mill, when commissioned, will take JSW Steel’s tinplate capacity to six lakh tonnes a year, including one lakh tonnes from its 50% ownership in Punjab-based Vallabh Tinplate.
JSW Steel has not mentioned a timeline for commissioning the mill. Tata Steel’s Tinplate Company, with a capacity of 3.8 lakh tonnes per annum, had also said it was working on various growth options that needed to be finalised.
Tinplate Company is the country’s oldest manufacturer of tinplate and has a 45% share of the market. In last year’s annual report, Koushik Chatterjee, the chairman of Tinplate Company, said its margins might come under pressure in the near future with increased domestic competition and a growing level of substitutes. The company’s net profit for the April-June quarter dropped 7% to Rs 8.8 crore.
