The Naveen Jindal group’s Jindal Panther Cement said it will invest Rs 2,160 crore to scale up production capacity to 7 million tonne per annum (mtpa).

The company will set up a cement grinding unit of 1.5 mtpa capacity in Angul, Odisha, setting the stage for further expansion.

The unit will use around 1 mtpa of blast furnace slag from Jindal Steel & Power’s integrated steel plant in Angul. Slag is a by-product in steelmaking and a raw material used in cement manufacturing. The 7 mtpa capacity addition is likely to happen over some four years.

The group has a 1 mtpa cement unit in Raigarh, Chhattisgarh, at the Jindal Steel & Power facility. Cement from the Raigarh unit is sold under the Jindal Panther brand.

The expansion to 7 mtpa – across Angul and Raigarh – would strengthen the group’s presence in the cement industry and provide sustainable construction materials to support growing infrastructure needs in the region, it said in a statement.

The move is in line with the strategy of becoming a “one-stop shop” for homebuilders whereby Panther’s cement and Steel & Power’s rebar would be jointly marketed via a common distribution system under the “Jindal Panther” brand.