Sail Posts 7% Rise In Steel Sales In Fy14; Exports Up 28%

Steel Authority of India reported a 7% growth in sales volume to 12.1 million tonne (MT) in FY14, as compared to 11.3 MT sales in FY13. The company's domestic sales growth was complemented by a 28% rise in exports to 0.47 MT during the year. Compared to this, SAIL's exports were 0.36 MT in FY13 . Production of saleable steel at 12.9 MT in FY14 was 4% higher than FY13. A focus on production of value-added steel led to 6% rise in special quality steels to 5.3MT in FY'14 as against 5.02 MT in FY13.

SAIL chairman C S Verma urged employees to strive towards making 2014-15 an inflection year with a majority of the facilities under the company's ongoing modernization and expansion plan (MEP) are slated to be operationalised and stabilized during the year. Last year (2013-14), projects worth Rs 10,000 crore were operationalised in SAIL. With this, projects worth Rs 23,000 crore have been operationalised underMEP. In 2013-14, SAIL added 2.5 MT of hot metal capacity with additional coke-making & sinter-making capacities also being added.

On Friday, G Mohan Kumar, secretary, ministry of steel, reviewed the company's marketing function at Central Marketing Organisation (CMO) headquarters at Kolkata. While interacting with senior CMO executives led by SAIL Director (Commercial) Binod Kumar, he advised the company to further expand its international presence and reach value-added steels to newly emerging markets across the world. SAIL-CMO recorded a growth of 3% and 9%, respectively, in sales of long and flat steel products, despite a subdued market during 2013-14.Emphasis on value-added steel sales enabled SAIL to market 2.2 lakh tonne of special steels, of which nearly one lakh tonnes comprised stainless steel.The year also saw SAIL supplying special quality slabs (in 15CDv6 grade) to meet the requirements of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre.

This year (2014-15), CMO's product basket will be enriched with high-quality wire rods as well as auto-grade cold rolled steel from the brand new mills which have come up at SAIL's IISCO Steel Plant and Bokaro Steel Plant respectively, a company statement said.

Source : economictimes.indiatimes.com