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CH RS Sarma
Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd is aiming at a sales turnover of ₹25,000 crore during the current financial year as against ₹20,000 crore achieved last year, according to its Chairman and Managing Director PK Rath.
In an interview, he said the market was in a sluggish phase, but it would improve soon. The capacity of the steel plant had been enhanced from the original 3 mtto 6.3 mt and with modernisation of the units another one mt will be added, taking the total to 7.3 mt.
“Almost all the units in the expansion phase are ready and functioning, barring one, and it would also be ready soon. Our first objective is to consolidate and stabilise the production at 7.3 mt level and then the next phase of expansion will be taken up,” he explained.
In the next phase, 4 mt would be added. “So far we have only produced long products and in the next phase we want to diversify into flats as well. It will enable us to make greater inroads into the market,” he said.
He said that for a production level of 7.3 mt, roughly 10 mt of ore willbe required and the NMDC would provide it. “We are making efforts to get the ore from Odisha for the next phase through the OMDC. We have been making efforts for a long time to get captive iron ore mines.
The lack of captive mines is proving to be costly and hitting our bottom line. The production cost goes up substantially, as we have to buy the ore at ₹3,000 more per tonne. Still, we are running the plant very efficiently on all techno-economic parameters and staying competitive,” he said. He said the new Government had announced a number of infrastructure projects and it augured well for the steel plant.
Plans for Kadapa plant
He said the plant was also focussing on producing value-added, high-end steel. Last year, the plant produced one million tonnes of such steel and it would go up to 1.3mtor so.
On the proposed Kadapa steel plant in Andhra Pradesh, Rath said, “Constructing a steel plant is not the issue. Securing the iron ore linkage and enough water for the plant are the main challenges. Then, the plant has to be run efficiently. We passed through all the vicissitudes here.”
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