MUMBAI, Nov 23: Saw Pipes Ltd, a part of the Jindal group, is all set to go ahead with its second overseas acquisition in the US. The company is acquiring a one million tonne plate mill facility at Baytown, Texas from US Steel Corporation.

The plate mill facility is reportedly a part of the company's backward integration plans. Earlier, the company had acquired a submerged arc welding pipe manufacturing plant from the same company. A formal announcement of the acquisition is expected to be made on Monday.

The saw pipe manufacturing unit has a capacity of 0.5 million tonne per annum which is owned by Saw Pipes, US in which Jindals hold 19 per cent stake.

Significantly, due to poor capacity utilisation in the Texas-based unit of Saw Pipes, Jindals had planned to take over the company for dismantling and transporting the entire plant to Goa in order to cater the domestic and neighbouring markets.

The company had planned to fund it from the proceeds of its proposed $ 50 million GDR issue.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.