Tata Steel aims to restart NINL steel mill in next 3 months: Narendran

Tata Steel is aiming to restart the 1-million tonne (mt) NINL steel mill in the next three months, CEO and MD T.V. Narendran said on Wednesday.

Tata Steel on Monday completed the acquisition of NINL through its subsidiary Tata Steel Long Products (TSLP) for a consideration of ₹12,000 crore.

The Odisha-based plant has been closed for almost two years.

Tata Steel’s next move will be to take ownership of NINL and ‘work hard’ along with employees and other stakeholders to realise the full potential of the asset, Mr. Narendran told PTI on a query on the company’s future strategy for the newly-acquired steel plant.

“We are ready to work with existing employees and restart the plant which has been closed for almost 2 years. We hope to get the production started in the next 3 months and ramp up to the rated capacity over the next 12 months,” the top official said.

During this time, Tata Steel will also work towards finalising the plans for the NINL capacity expansion to 5 million tonnes and take the requisite clearances internally and externally.

On January 31, Tata Steel announced winning the bid for acquiring 93.71% stake in Odisha-based steel maker NINL.

When asked about the reason for the delay in the acquisition process, he said “It took some time as there were multiple issues to be resolved between the multiple shareholders of NINL and us.” Besides the 1-mt steel mill, NINL has its own captive power plant to meet the internal power requirement and air separation unit for producing Oxygen, Nitrogen and Argon.

It also has its own captive iron ore mines which are under development.

The acquisition of NINL was critical for Tata Steel to build a dedicated long-products complex.