Tata Steel to set up reversing mills for Tata Bluescope, Tinplate
Financial Express — May 15, 2007

Tata Steel, now busy feeding the construction boom with long products, will set up reversing mills to produce cold-rolled sheets with high-quality finish that will be required by its Tata Bluescope colour-coating venture and Tinplate Co of India.

Tata Steel's current expansion of steel making capacity by 1.8 million tonne per annum (mtpa), to be completed by December 2007, will take its overall capacity to 6.8 mtpa. But this is focused on long products. In the next expansion, of 2.9 mtpa to be completed by 2009, the thrust would be on flat products. Its cold-rolling mill (CRM) today is fully loaded at 1.5 mtpa.

Anand Sen, vice-president for flat products, said there could only be some marginal improvement in flat production during 2007-08. "But our next plan in cold rolled steel is to have a 'reversing mill' of 3 lakh tonne for Tata Bluescope," Sen told FE. In a reversing mill, the cold-rolled steel is given a few passes through it to obtain a better finish. Tata Bluescope, whose colour-coating line is coming up here, would use the material for producing colour-coated sheets. Another 'reversing mill' is to produce a 2.20 lakh tpa for Tinplate Co.

"We will place the orders (for the reversing mills) some time in the next 3-6 months," said Sen, adding that the units were likely to be ready for production by end of 2009. Of its 1.5 mtpa CR capacity today, the steel major earmarks around 0.5 mtpa for auto products, 0.4 mtpa for its branded Steelium, 0.2 mtpa for its branded Tata Shaktee and another 0.4 mtpa for production of miscellaneous galvanised & cold rolled items including export-oriented products (0.2 mtpa).

Given volume constraints, the company has planned during the current year to derive value by enriching its product mix. In the auto segment, it has planned to develop 'skin panels,' to double its sales volumes over last year's figure. It would also focus more this year on high tensile steel.

Even though the approval process for skin panels is a long one, Tata Steel is already an OEM for skin panel supplies to some major automobile companies in the country. Corus, which Tata Steel acquired recently, is a predominantly into flat products, as it converts 11mtpa of its 18 mtpa steel production into flat items.