JSW Bullish On European Plans

Sajjan Jindal may not be taking the cue from Ratan Tata about mega leveraged buyouts but he''s surely going big on the European market. It plans to have service centres in France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands. JSW plans to invest $70-75 million for five service centres in Europe to cater to the automobile industry. Currently, only 1 MT out of total 4 MT steel at Jindal is value added products. But once the capacity at the group increases, JSW hopes valued added steel would be atleast 50 per cent of the revenues. And whats going to help is a technology that is a combination of blast furnace and corex technology to cut costs.

For the Jindal group, the ongoing capacity expansion will soon come on stream, particularly the cold mill and the hot strip expansion while the fresh crude steel capacity will come through by September. For now, even though prices may be seeing a slight correction, Indian steel companies seem to be banking on the long term, making sure that India''s cost advantage plays out well in the global market.