December 02, 2008

RINL focusing on special steels to boost income

Mr PK Bishnoi CMD of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited said that it is shifting focus to special steels and as a result it expects to sell 1.82 million tonnes of value added steel during 2007-08 up by 64% YoY.

Mr Bishnoi said that despite the abnormal increase in prices of raw material such as coking coal RINL is likely to post excellent financial results. He said that it was a year of challenges and disruptions in raw material supplies, steep increase in input prices and other problems. But the plant could improve its financial performance as it focused on special steel production for improved sales realization. He added that "The plant is likely to post net profit of INR 1,850 crore on a turnover of INR 10,425 crore during 2007-08 as against INR 1,363 crore during 2006-07 on a turnover of INR 9,131 crore."

However, he admitted that there was a slight dip in saleable steel production during the year to 3.07 million tonnes from 3.29 million tonnes in 2006-07. Dwelling on the problems faced by the plant during the year, Mr Bishnoi said there was disruption in supply of iron ore for some time and the fact that special steel manufacture requires more time should also be taken into account. Repairs also had to be carried out to the blast furnaces during the year and that also explains the slight slump. But still the plant is functioning well above its rated capacity and we have met the ministry’s targets.