Sail net up 20.3% at Rs 1,835 cr in Q1

Higher sales volume, increase in special steel production (value added), better operational efficiencies and higher interest earnings enabled the company to touch this growth level.     

The financial performance has improved despite a burden of Rs 1,434 crores on account of substantially higher cost of inputs like coal, freight, ferro-alloys, fuel and higher wage revision, a Rourkela Steel Plant release said here today.     

The company has registered sales turnover of Rs 12,183 crores with growth of 37 per cent during the period, it said.     

With thrust maintained on production of value added and special steels, the Sail plants produced about one million tonnes of items during first quarter, showing a growth of 41 per cent over the same period last year.     

During Q1, a number of capital projects were completed at Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP), Durgapur Steel Plant (DSP) and Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP). Construction work for expansion at IISCO plant, and Salem Steel Plant have commenced and were progressing as per the schedule.     

With utilisation of finishing mills at all time high in the quarter, finished steel production comprised 88 per cent of production as compared to 84 per cent during the last period.     

Further improvement in operational efficiency also helped the company. With 121 per cent of rated capacity utilisation of continuous casting shops, production through this energy-efficient route crossed two million tonnes.     

This helped in achieving of five per cent lower specific energy consumption at 6.89 giga calories per tonne of crude steel produced. Coke rate improved by two per cent to 530 kg per tonne of hot metal in quarter one from 539 during the period last year.