With new policies of the Central Government and its thrust on steel intensive sectors, the steel demand is likely to rise, Chairman of Steel Authority of India (SAIl) CS Verma said. ‘SAIl is ramping up its capacity to match this’, he said, in a press release issued here on Friday. On the occasion of release of SAIl’s quarterly financial results, Verma noted “Our initiatives taken to bring down energy consumption and optimize raw material utilization, as well as adoption of state-of-the-art technologies have helped us improve the techno-economic parameters and stay viable in the current market scenario.’’
SAIl registered Profit After Tax (PAT) of Rs579 crore for the Oct-Dec’14 quarter which is 9 per cent higher than the corresponding period last year (CPlY), the press release stated. The SAIl Board approved interim dividend for its shareholders at 17.5% of the company’s paid-up capital, which will involve a pay-out of Rs870 crore including tax on dividends. The net worth of the company increased to Rs43,333 crore as on December 31, 2014 an increase of Rs667 crore from March 31, 2014.
The unaudited financial results of SAIl for the quarter Oct-Dec’14 was taken on record by its Board of Directors. Improvement in profit was helped by factors such as enhanced production, better techno-economic parameters along with reduction in input cost particularly imported coking coal. During the quarter, SAIl achieved a turnover of Rs12,291 crore, which is 3 per cent lower than CPlY. The turnover was adversely impacted due to the prevailing challenging market conditions, fraught with high imports and consumption of steel remaining almost flat in the country.
The quarter (Q3) was a momentous one with respect to the modernization and expansion programme of SAIl, with integrated operations of 2.5 MTPA new steel plant at Burnpur commencing during this period, it stated. The state-of-the-art 4160 m3 blast furnace at ISP, Burnpur, ‘Kalyani’ was lighted up on November 30, 2014, which is the largest operating blast furnace in India. This would be the second such large volume Blast furnace in SAIl, after the first one operationalized in Rourkela Steel Plant. SAIl has already operationalized MODEX projects/facilities worth Rs32,000 crore till now.