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Journalism of Courage
Sajjan Jindal-led JSW Group is setting up a 10 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) green steel plant at Salav village of Raigad district in Maharashtra with an investment of Rs 50,000 to Rs 60,000 crore.
The plant will cater to Europe, which is in the process of imposing Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), JSW Group’s Chairman Sajjan Jindal said at the centenary year celebration of the Indian Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday.
“We will set up a separate steel plant which will be 10 million tonnes per annum steel plant only for green steel and it will export into Europe,” Jindal said.
The European Union (EU) Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) aims to reduce carbon emissions, put a fair price on the carbon emitted during the production of carbon intensive goods imported into the EU and encourage a cleaner industrial production through a methodology for calculating embedded emissions.
Jindal said the plant is part of the brownfield expansion and will entail an investment of Rs 50,000-Rs 60,000 crore over a period of three to four years. The plant will be based on natural gas to start with, but it will have the technology to switch to hydrogen as and when zero carbon steel is needed.
Speaking about the uncertainty caused by implementation of tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump, Jindal said that it was a temporary phase.
“It’s a 3-4 year situation. This kind of hiccup which is happening is because Trump does something yesterday and then today morning will do something and today evening again something else. So, this will stabilize. He loves to negotiate,” he said.
Jindal, however, said that he does not foresee much disruption in the world due to tariffs.
“The opportunity for India is going to be that this time it won’t be a China plus one, it will be India minus China,” he said.
According to him, if the Indian industry rises to the occasion, then it can be the real replacement for China.
When asked about JSW’s cars venture, Jindal said, “The idea is that I want to bring cars which are very high quality, high on technology and low on price. I want Indians to really drive high quality cars at an affordable price.”
Jindal said the group is planning to manufacture battery cells for electric cars. “We are already working on developing the cells with the technology from China.” The group is already in discussion with some Korean companies to develop these cells in India.
