Steel PSUs investing Rs13,000 crore to raise capacity to 35 million tonnes

Top steel PSUs - Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL), National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL) - will invest a total of Rs13,000 crore this fiscal to expand their combined capacities to about 35 million tonnes over the next two-three years.

SAIL alone will spend Rs10,000 crore on capacity expansion this fiscal while NMDC and RINL will invest a total of Rs3,000 crore.

''SAIL, NMDC and RINL will together spend Rs13,000 crore in the present fiscal on their respective expansion programmes with the aim to almost double their production capacities by 2011-12,'' said P K Rastogi, secretary in the steel ministry.

SAIL and RINL currently produce about 18 million tonnes of steel while  NMDC will set up a three million tonnes per annum steel unit in Chhattisgarh.
 
SAIL targets to produce around 12 million tonnes of salable steel during financial year 2009-10, despite the current economic slowdown. As per the memorandum of understanding signed with the ministry of steel.

The MoU also focuses on production of higher volume of value-added steel products of over 3 million tonnes during the year to meet the growing requirements of high-end user segments. The MoU sets a challenging target of achieving a sales turnover of over Rs40,000 crore during 2009-10.

SAIL said it is taking active measures top ensure that it continues to be a dominant player in the steel production map of the world in this era of increasing global competition.

SAIL has embarked upon an expansion plan for raising annual steel making capacity of 26.2 million tonnes per annum against the present capacity of 14.6 million tonnes per annum. The modernisation of SAIL plants/units is expected to be completed progressively by December 2010 at an estimated cost of around Rs54,000 crore.

This involves expansion of Liquid steel capacity from 3 million tonnes to 6.3 million tonnes by 2007-08 by Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd, (Visakhapatnam Steel Plant). Similarly, the expansion plan of RINL to increase its liquid steel capacity to 6.3 million tonnes per annum is underway and is expected to be completed by February 2010 at a cost of Rs9,000 crore.