NINL hopes to return to black riding on billet output

Pig iron maker Neelachal Ispat Nigam Limited (NINL), which incurred about Rs 100 crore loss in the last fiscal due to poor demand for pig iron, hopes to return to profit mode in the current year riding on the economic advantage of its newly set up steel making unit.

NINL, jointly promoted by MMTC and the Odisha government, operates a steel plant at Kalinganagar in Jajpur district. The company has started getting queries on sale of billets following recent commissioning of its steel melting shop (SMS) and billet caster units.

"Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) is in talks with us to buy out entire billet produced by us. Visa Steel has also approached us. We see a great scope for billet," said S P Patnaik, managing director of NINL.

NINL has the capacity to produce 1.1 million tonne crude steel, out of which 900,000 tonne would be billets and the rest pig iron. In the current fiscal, the company plans to produce equal amount of pig iron and billets with the proposal to scale up the output of billets gradually.

India's annual long steel production is about 33 million tonne with billets comprising the lion's share. The billets are primariliy used in construction sector. However, high carbon content billets are also used in making automobile parts and manufacturing of pump shafts.

"Since NINL billet quality is upto the mark, we hope our product will have a good demand for specialised uses," said P K Mishra, joint managing director of the company.

Billets are semi-finished long steel products, which are processed further at rolling mills to get desired shape and sizes. It can be processed into making spring steel, gears for automobiles.