

Tata Steel bets big on expansion and green tech—can the balance sheet hold?
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Shares of Tata Steel Ltd have gained about 6% over the past three trading days after its board approved a slew of projects, along with an acquisition and a memorandum of understanding (MoU). Together, these initiatives aim to enhance scale, expand the product portfolio, strengthen backward and forward integration, and reduce the company’s carbon footprint.
Among the largest is a 4.8 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) expansion project, along with associated mines, at Neelachal Ispat Nigam Ltd, which currently has a capacity of 1 mtpa. The expansion would allow Tata Steel to significantly scale up its long products portfolio, primarily catering to the retail construction sector, a higher-margin and high-growth segment. Long products account for 55-60% of India’s total steel demand, even though they make up only around 15% of Tata Steel’s total production.
Two other projects include a 2.5 mtpa thin slab caster and rolling mill at Meramandali, Odisha, and a 0.7 mtpa hot-rolled pickling and galvanizing line (HRPGL) unit at its existing facility in Tarapur, Maharashtra. The HRPGL unit would manufacture advanced grades of steel for the automotive segment, demand for which is currently met through imports. Yet, the most significant project is the proposed 1 mtpa plant based on HIsarna technology, a low-carbon steelmaking process that uses inferior-quality iron ore along with steel slag and eliminates the use of coke.
Tata Steel holds a patent for the technology and has been operating a pilot plant for about a decade. The process offers cost savings of about ₹3,000 per tonne and, if successfully scaled up commercially, could provide a meaningful competitive advantage. In addition, Tata Steel has
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