Tata Steel
Ltd will look to grow organically, and the steel giant is under no pressure to
look at fresh acquisitions during this decade, Chief Executive Officer and
Managing Director T V Narendran said. Narendran said that the Jamshedpur-based
behemoth will fuel its growth ambitions to more than double its output, relying
on organic growth at its existing sites.
“Most of our growth in the last few years has been through the inorganic route
(acquisitions). Currently, we are in a position where all our growth ambitions
can be met through organic growth in our existing sites. We don't really need
to acquire any new assets to grow (output) to 40-50 MTPA (million tonne per
annum) from the present level of 20 MTPA. We will rely more on organic growth
during this decade,” Narendran told PTI in an interview.
Tata Steel
had reported production of 19.06 million tonne in the 2021-2022 fiscal. The
steel behemoth had acquired Bhushan Steel in 2018, followed by Usha Martin in
2019. It is also on course to complete the acquisition of Neelachal Ispat Nigam
Ltd (NINL) by the end of the April-June quarter.
Elaborating
on the expansion plans of the company, he said the NINL output will be ramped
up to 10 MTPA from 1 MTPA, while the Kalinganagar plant will see an expansion
to 8 MTPA from 3 MTPA, and later to 16 MTPA. So, there are huge opportunities
and plans being made, he asserted.
Speaking of
Tata Steel's decision to stop coal imports from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine,
Narendran said the company is aware that the same quantity can be easily
sourced from other countries.
“We
typically buy close to 15 MT of coal annually, of which around 3 MT used to
come from Russia which can be easily be sourced from countries like Australia,
Indonesia and Canada,” he said.
Prohibitive
insurance and shipping costs from Russia and Ukraine have made trade with those
countries difficult for most partne