High input costs to put pressure on prices: Tata Steel

Steel prices will continue to rise in the immediate future as input cost is increasing but the demand will remain high, Tata Steel today said.

"Steel prices will continue to increase in the near future due to a rise in the cost of raw materials. But the demand for steel will be high," Tata Steel Managing Director, H M Nerurkar, told reporters here.

Prices of raw materials such as coking coal are rising and will continue to rise in the near future, he said.

At present, the price of spot coking coal is hovering at around $260-265 a tonne in Queensland, the largest coal producing province in Australia, which is facing its worst-ever floods in the past few decades.

Earlier, Tata Steel had increased prices of its products by up to Rs 1,500-1,700 per tonne.

Asked if the company was mulling any upward revision in its steel prices in the near future, Nerurkar said, "We have not decided anything yet. We will take a call at the right time."

On its Rs 2,300-crore greenfield Kalinganagar project in Orissa, Nerurkar said, "The company will start construction of the plant by the end of this month."

"Construction will start this month-end and the first phase of production will start by early 2013," he said.

Tata Steel had signed an MoU with the Orissa government way back in November 2004 for setting up a 6 million tonne per annum integrated steel plant at the Kalinganagar Industrial Complex in Jajpur district of the state.