JFE Steel Corporation and JSW Steel Ltd have announced a significant expansion of their grain-oriented electrical steel (GOES) manufacturing operations in India, through their joint ventures JSW JFE Electrical Steel Pvt Ltd (J2ES Vijayanagar) and JSW JFE Electrical Steel Nashik Pvt Ltd (J2ES Nashik).
The joint expansion plan involves a total investment of approximately 120 billion yen (around Rs 6,500 crore), including 99 billion yen for capacity expansion and an additional 21 billion yen allocated for working capital and other related investments. This is in addition to the 100 billion yen invested earlier to establish J2ES Vijayanagar in February 2024 and 70 billion yen for the acquisition of J2ES Nashik in January 2025. With these, the cumulative investment by both partners will total approximately 290 billion yen.
As part of the expansion strategy, the manufacturing capacity of the J2ES Vijayanagar facility in Karnataka will be doubled from the initial plan to 100,000 ton per year. Meanwhile, the Nashik facility in Maharashtra will witness a fivefold increase in capacity, from the current 50,000 ton per year to 250,000 ton per year. Following the completion of these upgrades, the combined production capacity of both sites will reach 350,000 ton annually.
The Vijayanagar site is expected to commence full-scale operations by 2027, while the Nashik site will undergo phased expansion beginning in 2028, with full completion slated for 2030.
This investment comes amid rising demand for GOES in India, fueled by increasing electricity consumption, the expansion of renewable energy, improved transformer efficiency requirements, and the proliferation of data centers. JFE and JSW aim to become the leading supplier of GOES in India, which is currently the world’s most populous country.
The expansion is also aligned with JFE Group’s long-term sustainability and growth strategy, ‘JFE Vision 2035,’ and its 8th Medium-Term Business Plan (2025–2027), which earmarks 400 billion yen for strategic growth investments in overseas markets. This move marks the first major step in that direction and aims to position the JFE-JSW partnership as India’s only fully integrated manufacturer of grain-oriented electrical steel.