JSW Steel plans `2,000 crore iron ore pipeline

JSW Steel is working towards a de-risking strategy for iron ore that will fuel its ambition to turn its Bellary plant into world's largest single site steel 

plant by 2022.

‘We are setting up 500km slurry pipeline to import iron ore into the Vijayanagar plant in Bellary from a port near Goa. My vision is to turn Vijayanagar from 10 million tonne to 20 million tonne, world's largest single site steel plant by 2022,’ JSW Steel chairman and managing director Sajjan Jindal said here on Sunday.

He was speaking on the sidelines of inauguration of Ispat Pragati Bhawan, the new office of Insdag. He said Karnataka can offer the maximum iron ore of 15 million tonnes, while to take the steel production to 20 million tonnes, JSW would require 35 million tonnes of iron ore. Jindal said that laying the 500 km pipeline from Jaigarh near Goa to Bellary district would cost about Rs 2,000 crore and the same will come up over the next two years. The project will pump imported iron ore from overseas sources and will have an annual freight cost saving of Rs 2,000 crore and that will help neutralise the cost disadvantage of imported iron ore, the company said.

JSW said only 50 per cent of its iron ore requirement is fed by domestic sources, mostly from Karnataka.