Taking total investment in tin plate manufacturing to almost Rs 1,000 crore, JSW Steel on Friday began the rollout of JSW Platina to tap the growing opportunity for tinplate products demanded by India’s packaging industry.
The company had ramped up investments at its Tarapur works facility in Maharashtra by deciding to spend another Rs 419 crore to bring up a 0.25 million tonne tin plate manufacturing facility. Last year, the company had installed and commissioned a 0.25 million tonne mill with a total expenditure of Rs 575 crore. The overall investment at Tarapur will take JSW Steel’s total tin plate manufacturing capacity to 5 lakh tonnes per annum. Additionally, it also has a 1 lakh tonne per annum tin plate capacity in Punjab through Vallabh Tinplate in which the company holds a 50% stake.
Due to the ban of single-use plastic in many states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and others, the demand for tin plate has gone up by more than 20% to touch 7 lakh tonnes per annum in the last financial year. JSW Steel said it is the first player in the country to introduce continuous annealing technology for making the packaging material. The technology will make the material tougher.
The domestic tin plate market is estimated to be close to Rs 6,000 crore and has been dominated by Tinplate Company of India, a Tata Steel subsidiary for almost a century. With the commissioning of the new line, JSW Steel may overtake Tata Steel in the production of the material. TCIL’s current capacity is 380,000 tonnes.