The Hindu Business Line : Tata Ryerson earns Rs 300 cr in 2003-04

TATA Ryerson Ltd, a 50:50 joint venture of Tata Steel and Ryerson-Tull of the US, hopes to process and distribute two million tonnes of steel by 2010. This would translate into a revenue of around Rs 1,000 crore and a profit after tax of Rs 30 crore, according to Mr Sandipan Chakravortty, Managing Director of Tata Ryerson Ltd.

Addressing a news conference held here on Friday, Mr Chakravortty said that, at present, the company processes and distributes 7,50,000 tonnes of steel each year through its national sales network. In the fiscal 2003-04, the company clocked a turnover of around Rs 300 crore, up from Rs 194 crore recorded in 2002-03. In the year ending March 31, 2005, the company is hopeful of registering a turnover of Rs 500 crore.

With a view to augmenting its steel processing and distributing capacity, the company has chalked out a Rs 100-crore investment plan over the next three years. These include the setting up of a 1,00,000 tonnes per annum capacity cold-rolled coil processing facility at Faridabad and augmentation of capacities at the company's existing plants at Jamshedpur and Pune. A plant would be also be set up in Chennai by 2006. These facilities would specifically be targeted at servicing the automotive and appliances industries in these regions.

According to Mr Chakravortty, the increase in the capacity of the company's Jamshedpur plant was necessitated by Tata Steel's plans to ramp up its production capacity to seven million tonnes per annum over the next few years.

Besides, with the ushering in of the WTO regime, more and more steel would come into India from outside. As such, Tata Ryerson was building up capacities to process and distribute more steel.