JSW Steel plans to invest US$500 million in Ohio

Steel major, JSW Steel has proposed a plan to invest approximately US$ 500 million in the newly acquired US company Acero Junction Inc in a phased manner.

Acero's steel plant is located in the state of Ohio, in the US. JSW Steel plans to expand the facility into a fully integrated manufacturing unit with a capacity of 3 MTPA. With this plan, the company will be investing a total of US$ billion to produce American steel.

In the first phase, JSW will upgrade the Ohio plant's electric arc furnace, slab caster and hot strip mill, which with an expected cost of US$250 million, including acquisition cost. In the second phase, according to the demand scenario, JSW will invest US$250 million for an additional furnace and equipment for the mill.

This investment is in-line with the JSW's strategy of producing steel at highly competitive price using electric arc furnace while benefiting from the easy availability of scrap metal and cheap natural gas in the US market. Earlier, the company had announced the plan to invest an equivalent amount in its operations at Baytown, Texas, US.

At 10:56 hours, the stock of JSW Steel Limited was trading at Rs. 337.20 per share, up by 1.25 per cent on Friday. Meanwhile the benchmark index BSE Sensex was at 35,425.28, down marginally by 0.02 per cent.