The 20,000-crore Jindal Stainless Group is expecting the first phase of its brownfield project for cold-rolled products at Jajpur in Odisha to be commissioned this month.

According to Vijay Sharma, Senior Vice-President and Head of Sales, the first unit with one lakh tonne capacity will go on stream this month, while the second unit of another one lakh tonne capacity is likely to be commissioned by the next fiscal.

“Ramping up of capacity of cold-rolled products will give us better margins,” Sharma told newspersons here on Friday.

The Jindal Stainless Group comprises Jindal Stainless Ltd and Jindal Stainless (Hisar) Ltd. The group currently produces close to 10.5 lakh tonnes (lt) of cold-rolled stainless steel across three units — 4.5 lt in Odisha, 4.5 lt in Hisar and the remaining 1.5 lt at its subsidiary PT Jindal Stainless in Indonesia.

Cold-rolled steel is known for its fine and smooth finish and finds application in several value-added and speciality steel products such as defence and nuclear energy.

For the year ended March 31, 2018, Jindal Stainless had an operating profit margin (OPM) of 7.18 per cent as compared to 4.43 per cent in the same period last year, while its net profit margin (NPM) was 2.9 per cent (0.65 per cent). Jindal Stainless (Hisar) posted an OPM of 9.26 per cent for the year ended March 2018, as compared with 7.80 per cent in the same period last year.

The company, which has an installed capacity of 1.6 million tonnes (mt), produces and sells close to 1.4 mt of stainless steel, primarily flat products, a year. Of this 1.4 mt, nearly 55 per cent is cold-rolled products, while the rest is hot-rolled.

The company is expecting its turnover to grow by around 20 per cent in 2019-20, supported by a good demand for the products in value-added segments including railway wagons and coaches, metro coaches, automobile industry as well as kitchenware and other applications.

 

Source: thehindubusinessline.com

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