Kolkata: TATA Metaliks Ltd is considering expanding its pig iron capacity at its plant in Kharagpur, West Bengal. Tata Metaliks’ chairman Dr Tridibesh Mukherjee, who is also Tata Steel’s executive director for operations, said on Friday that the company was considering various options for capacity expansion. These include introducing an oxygen enrichment plant, or installing a second-hand blast furnace. No decision has been taken so far.

"The expansion route will be determined based on how much capacity we want to add, which would also depend on market demand," Dr Mukherjee said. He said the decision will be taken during the course of the year.

Sources said the company may opt for installing a second-hand blast furnace as Tata Steel had done earlier. Tata Steel bought a second-hand, but brand new blast furnace from Portugal. The decision is likely to be taken up after the West Bengal Assembly elections scheduled to be held on May 10.

The company’s managing director, Harsh K Jha and its vice-president for marketing Harsh Kumar, are examining various options for the expansion.

Tata Metaliks relined its blast furnace in October 2000, after a campaign life of six-and-a-half years, at a cost of Rs 7.5 crore. This has helped the company to expand its capacity to 1.3 lakh tonne per annum.

During the 2000-01 fiscal, the company’s production has gone down to 111,267 tonne from the previous fiscal’s 116,247 tonne. So also sales, which dipped from 116,922 tonne to 115,078 tonne.

The fall was due to the blast furnace shutting down for religning for a period of 33 days.

If the production and sales are annualised, the figures for 2000-01 would be 122,372 tonne and 126,138 tonne respectively, Mr Jha said.

The company is also considering increasing the production of automobile castings.