JSW steel eyes 4,004-acre Posco land in Odisha.

Sajjan Jindal's JSW Steel has expressed interest in the 4,004 acres earmarked for Korean steel major Posco's seemingly doomed mega project in Odisha.

A JSW Steel director recently met a senior state bureaucrat to convey to the government its interest on the land, if Posco walks away from the project, said a senior company executive. Two senior state government officials confirmed the meeting. A Posco India spokesperson didn't respond to phone calls.

'With its iron ore and coal and long coastline, there cannot be a better state than Odisha for a 6 million tonne steel plant today. And no better location than this,' said the executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Posco had proposed to set up a plant with a capacity to produce 12 million tonnes of steel a year at Jagatsinghpur, 10 km south of Paradeep Port, and have its own captive port dredged out of the mouth of the Jatadhari River.

JSW, the nation's second largest steelmaker with 14.3 MT capacity, had announced plans to invest $22 billion (or Rs 1.38 lakh crore) through the next decade to take capacity to 40 MT.


ET