The Hindu Business Line : Coking coal supplies — High-level SAIL, RINL team leaves for Australia

TO address the coking coal problem faced by the steel plants of Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL) here, a high-level team of officials left for Australia on Wednesday from New Delhi, according to Mr B.K Panda, Chairman and Managing Director of RINL.

In an interview here on Wednesday, Mr Panda said both the SAIL plants and RINL were facing the problem of scarcity of coking coal, as the Australian companies were unable to meet their commitments in the recent past. "RINL is in a slightly better position than the SAIL plants, but we are also facing it here," he said and added that the Australian companies were invoking the force majeure emergency clause to justify their reduced supplies.

"A high-level team is leaving for Australia today (Wednesday) to study the situation there and our Director (Commercial) is also a member of the delegation. The Australian companies have told us that the position would ease up by May and we are hoping for the best," Mr Panda said.

Answering a query on alternative sources of supply, he said there was coking coal shortage everywhere and previously China was exporting the coal to an extent. "But of late they have altogether stopped supply as they are taking up steel production in a big way and are importing a lot of steel to prepare the infrastructure for the Olympics," he explained.

On the question of iron ore supply, he said the plant had stocks sufficient for a week's production or so, but the supplies were coming on a regular basis. "We can handle the iron ore problem, as there is plenty of ore in the country and we can get it from some source or the other. But coking coal problem is more difficult."

On the increase in steel prices, he said that it was inevitable, as the raw material prices were increasing all the time. "There is plenty of demand and raw material prices are shooting up. Therefore, a further hike in steel prices is imminent."

On the performance of the steel plant here, he said 2003 was a "memorable year" with the plant registering "excellent" performance on all counts. "The plant is operating at more than its rated capacities in all the production units. From April 2003 to January 2004, the plant produced 3.4 million tonnes of hot metal, 2.91 million tonnes of liquid steel and 2.62 million tonnes of saleable steel, beating all past records," he said.

During the period, the sales turnover touched Rs 4,777 crore, 24 per cent higher than the sales during the corresponding period in the previous year. The domestic sales were of the order of Rs 4,181 crore and exports Rs 596 crore.

"RINL could achieve the zero debt company status by October 2003, and there is no looking back for the plant, if we can solve the raw material problem as quickly as possible. The workers contributed immensely for the remarkable turnaround of the RINL," said Mr Panda.