The Hindu Business Line : SPS Sponge plans Rs 380-cr plant in Orissa

SPS Sponge Iron Ltd, a SPS group company, will soon be renamed SPS Steel & Power Ltd. An application in this regard has already been made to the Registrar of Companies. The company is also setting up a sponge iron and steel making facility at Jharsuguda in Orissa at an estimated investment of Rs 380 crore.

According to Mr Bipin Kumar Vohra, Chairman and Managing Director of the Rs 366-crore group, another group company SPS Steel Rolling Mills Ltd, which manufactures the Elegant brand of TMT (thermo mechanically treated) bars at its Durgapur plant, would be merged with SPS Steel & Power at a later date.

Mr Vohra said that the first phase of the Jharsuguda plant would be operational by September this year and commence manufacture of sponge iron.

The second phase is scheduled to be commissioned by June 2005.

When complete the plant would produce 288,000 tonnes of billets, two lakh tonnes of sponge iron, one lakh tonnes of finished steel, two lakh tonnes of pig iron and 20 MW of DRI-gassed power annually.

Mr Vohra said that production from the plant in Jharsuguda would be used a raw material for the SPS Steel Rolling Mills Durgapur plant, where the capacity is being augmented to 2,20,000 tonnes per annum, from 1,20,000 tonnes per annum currently, at an estimated investment of Rs 45 crore.

Besides TMT bars, which are manufactured under licence from Thermax of Germany, the Durgapur facility will embark on the manufacture of angles, channels and flats.

The second rolling mill at Durgapur would be operational by October this year.

Mr Vohra said that after setting up additional capacities the group would like to position the company's range of products in other parts of the country.

Currently, its marketing initiatives are confined mostly to the eastern region.

With projects under implementation going on stream, the group hopes to end 2004-05 with a turnover of Rs 800 crore. The projected profit after tax in the current fiscal has been pegged at 37 crore.