Ministry of Environment grants Environmental Clearance for planned expansion in existing plant in Ludhiana

Vardhman Special Steels Limited (BSE: 534392. NSE: VSSL), among India's leading producers of special steels catering to diverse sectors of automotive, engineering, tractor, bearing & allied industries, has been granted the long-awaited Environmental Clearance for expansion of capacity at its existing plant in Ludhiana, upto 2,80,000 tons per annum of rolled production.

The Company applied for the said approval in CY 2019 and since then has been making continuous and untiring efforts and pitching its case before the concerned authorities for the grant of environment clearance. The Company has all the mechanisms in place that will take proper care of the concerns related to environment. Its commitment towards creating a sustainable environment is among the top priority.

With this approval the path for enhancement of capacity is cleared. To begin with, the current rolling capacity of 200,000 tons per annum would be increased to 250,000 tons. This would also enable the Company to fill up the enhanced capacities with the requirements of Aichi, partners of VSSL. Once this happens the Management is confident of achieving higher profitability.

Commenting on the development, Mr. Sachit Jain, Vice Chairman & Managing Director, Vardhman Special Steels Ltd. said, "We are pleased to inform that the long-awaited approval for the Environmental Clearance (EC) has been granted to the Company by the Ministry of Environment. This is a very exciting development for the Company and its stakeholders. This approval is the first step towards achievement of medium-term objectives, to begin with we would have a capacity enhancement to 250,000 tons per annum.

Now we are in a position to utilize the funds infused by Aichi in the most productive way so that we can fulfil the demand for new and high-grade automotive steel. Also, as stated on public platform, this capacity enhancement would enable us to up our EBITDA target range to Rs. 7,000 to Rs. 9,000 per ton. And I am happy to share that our talks with OEMs regarding price increase is going well as per our expectations.

As regards Aichi, we have sent out our first samples to our customers for Aichi's operations in Thailand and Aichi's operations in Philippines and to Head Office in Japan. The EC approval is going to facilitate the sampling process and give us greater confidence to reach our strategic goals well in time.

Although we experienced very challenging times especially in the last few years, but I must state that we have been endowed with a very dedicated and enthusiastic team who took up the challenge and kept the morale high which has been an important factor in keeping us going. I am thankful to the entire team at Vardhman for their willingness to take up challenges and overcome those with their untiring efforts."

Shares of VARDHMAN SPECIAL STEELS LTD. was last trading in BSE at Rs. 212 as compared to the previous close of Rs. 214.15. The total number of shares traded during the day was 17475 in over 848 trades.

The stock hit an intraday high of Rs. 217 and intraday low of 212. The net turnover during the day was Rs. 3743527.

Source : Equity Bulls

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