A. Amalgamation
a. Kalimati Investment Company Limited
Pursuant to the sanction of the Hon'ble High Court of Bombay to the Scheme of Amalgamation, the assets and liabilities of the erstwhile Kalimati Investment Company Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company (whose principal business was to carry on the business of investment and finance, and was registered as a non-banking financial company with the Reserve Bank of India) has been amalgamated with the Company with effect from January 1, 2013 in accordance with the scheme so sanctioned by the Court. The effect of the merger has been given in the accounts.
b. Tata Metaliks Limited
Tata Metaliks Limited (TML), a subsidiary of the Company is one of the largest producers of Foundry Grade Pig Iron in India. On 10th April, 2013, Tata Steel Limited announced the merger of TML and its subsidiary TMKPL with your Company under a Scheme of Amalgamation to be sanctioned through a court approval process. Tata Steel will issue 4 (four) equity shares of ` 10 each for every 29 (twenty nine) equity shares of ` 10 each held by the public shareholders of TML upon approval of the Scheme by the Courts.
Tata Steel holds 50.09% of the equity share capital of TML. The Shareholders’ approval for the Scheme is being sought at the Court Convened Meeting of the shareholders to be held on 16th May, 2014.
B. Capital Projects
a. 2.9 milion tonnes expansion project in Jamshedpur Major facilities such as Pellet Plant, Coke Oven Battery 10, “I” Blast Furnance, LD3 and TSCR under the 2.9 mtpa expansion project in Jamshedpur were commissioned in the Financial Year 2012-13. These facilities have been stabilised during the year which has enabled the Company to ramp up its production to 9.16 million tonnes of crude steel. b. Greenfield Project in Odisha
Kalinganagar Project in Odisha is the Company’s second integrated greenfield steel plant with 6 million tonnes crude steel capacity, after Jamshedpur. It is being executed in two phases of 3 million tonne each, with the entire capacity principally devoted to flat products. The Company’s Phase 1 of the 3 million tonne per annum of green field project at Kalinganagar Complex in Odisha has progressed significantly during the Financial Year. The stage wise commissioning of various units, namely power generation units, coke ovens, sinter plant, blast furnace, steel melting shop and hot strip mill of the first phase is expected to be initiated towards the end of Financial Year 2014-15. Subsequent to the commissioning and ramp up of the first phase of operations in Kalinganagar, the Company will also
progress towards the implementation of second phase of the project in future.
c. Direct Shipping Ore Project in Canada
The Company through its Joint Venture Company (Tata Steel Minerals Canada Limited) is developing a Direct Shipping Ore (DSO) Project in the provinces of Quebec and Newfoundland & Labrador. The Company indirectly holds 80% in Tata Steel Minerals Canada (TSMC). New Millennium Corporation (NML), a Toronto listed company, holds 20% stake in the joint venture company. In addition, the Company holds 26.33% stake in NML.
The project primarily comprises of mining, crushing, washing, screening and drying the run- of-mine ore with a state-of-the-art facility near Schefferville, Québec to produce 4.2 million tonnes per annum of sinter fines and pellet feed. The processing facilities will be housed under a large steel supported fabric structure to enable year round operations. The construction of the processing plant is on-going and is expected to be commissioned by end of Financial Year 2014-15. Besides a dry crushing and screening facilities have also been installed which will produce about 1.8 million tonnes per annum of iron ore product. The above facilities will enable TSMC to produce and despatch around 6 million tonnes per annum of iron ore in a phased manner.
TSMC had already commenced mining activity in September 2012 and the mine has produced around 1 million tonnes till Financial Year 2013-14 through
dry crushing and screening. TSMC shipped about 0.25 million tonnes in Financial Year 2013-14 and the shipment for Financial Year 2014-15 is expected to commence shortly.
Key developments during the year were as follows: i. The Company increased its resource base from
64 million tonnes to 93 million tonnes through exploration activities in DSO properties. An additional potential of 8 million tonnes has been identified.
ii. TSMC entered into an un-incorporated joint venture with Labrador Iron Ore Mines (LIM) to acquire a 51% stake in the Howse deposit based on the outcome of the feasibility study. This is expected to add an additional 24 million tonnes of reserves to the resources of the Company. The feasibility study is in progress. Considerable savings in operating costs are expected to be achieved due to access to the Howse deposit. With Howse deposits, the combined resource base stands at 125 million tonnes.
iii. The construction of the Deep Sea Port at Sept-IIes, Canada through which TSMC intends to export its products is likely to be completed by end of 2014. The access to the Deep Sea port is not available at present but the Federal and Provincial Governments are supporting the Port Authority’s efforts to obtain the required access to the Deep Sea Port. It is expected that this issue will get resolved shortly. In the meanwhile, TSMC has entered into agreement with the Iron Ore Company of Canada to export its product for year 2014.