By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, October 5, 2022: Tata Steel Long Products (TSLP), a Tata Steel arm, has started operations at Odisha-based Neelachal Ispat Nigam Ltd (NINL) nearly 90 days after it acquired the closed unit for Rs 12,000 crore in a bidding process.

The plant with a 1.1 million tonnes steel-making capacity was closed for almost two years on account of various reasons.

The Company in a statement said that it achieved a milestone with the restarting of the blast furnace at its subsidiary NINL, just 90 days after the completion of its acquisition on July 4, 2022.

T V Narendran, Chairman of Tata Steel Long Products Ltd & NINL said, “Given that the site was not in operation for two years, we wanted to restart the furnace quickly, deploying and demonstrating Tata Steel’s strong execution capabilities”.

Narendran, who is also the CEO & Managing Director of parent Tata Steel, said the focus is now on ramping up production gradually to rated capacity as per plan.

Tata Steel has plans to invest in the NINL site to build a dedicated 4.5 million tons per annum long products complex over the next few years.