Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Saturday, Apr 23, 2005
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Saturday, Apr 23, 2005 |
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Corporate
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Announcements Salem Steel Plant may get melting facilities Our Bureau
Chennai , April 22 SALEM Steel Plant (SSP), part of Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL), is "now giving final touches" to a long-term plan, which basically seeks to address the plant's inherent problem relating to sourcing of slabs for rolling. "Not having any steel making facility, SSP has been depending so far on slabs from outside sources for rolling. This bottleneck can be removed by setting up steel melting facilities," says a note on SSP, prepared by SAIL. At a press conference, the Minister for Chemicals & Fertilisers and Steel, Mr Ram Vilas Paswan, said setting up a new steel making facility for SSP would cost about Rs 500 crore. He said that the Ministry had asked SSP to give a proposal on setting up such a facility. The Minister said finding funds for the new plant would not be a problem, as SAIL was making good profit. After many years of making losses, the Salem Steel Plant turned in a profit of Rs 1.9 crore, the Minister said. On steel prices, Mr Paswan said that there was no way to control them. However, in a bid to keep a check on input costs, the Ministry was working on getting Indian companies set up joint ventures with companies that mine coking coal. India requires 13 million tonnes of coking coal a year, but the indigenous production is only about 4 million tonnes. Answering a question, Mr Paswan said that the opening up of new iron ore mines was not happening because of opposition from some State Governments. He said that, for example, the Jharkhand Government had not renewed the licence for all but one of the six mines in the State. Not opening up new iron ore mines, while ore exports are increasing, has been a sore point with steel manufacturers and has been pointed out frequently by the Indian Steel Alliance.
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