UPDATE:Tata Steel sales volume up 18% in May

Tata Steel today said its sales volume surged by 18 per cent to 4.69 lakh tonnes in May on the back of robust demand from auto and construction sectors.

In the corresponding month last year, the company's sales stood at 3.97 lakh tonnes, the steel major said in a statement.

During the month under review, Tata Steel saw its saleable steel production surging by 23 per cent to 5.01 lakh tonnes as against 4.08 lakh tonnes.

The sale of long products, mainly used in construction industry, increased by 34 per cent while that of flat items, used by auto and consumer durable sectors, increased by nine per cent, over the year-ago period.

Tata Steel's crude steel output for the month went up by 17 per cent to 4.86 lakh tonnes from 4.16 lakh tonnes, while hot metal production rose by 19 per cent to 5.28 lakh tonnes from 4.43 lakh tonnes.

The company claimed that one of its steel melting shops in Jamshedpur achieved best-ever May production at 2.18 lakh tonnes. Also, a merchant mill recorded best-ever May production of 30,710 tonnes over 28,505 tonnes the same period last year.

The output of its hot strip mill and new bar mill also registered an impressive growth over May 2008, it said.

 After commissioning a new 1.8-million tonne blast furnace at its Jamshedpur works unit, Tata Steel is in the process of enhancing its production capacity to 10.5 million tonnes by 2010.

At present, the company's Jamshedpur plant has a capacity to produce 6.8 million tonnes of steel annually.

In addition to increasing the capacity of its existing unit, the steel major is in the process of setting up greenfield projects in Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh.

While in Jharkhand it proposes to invest about Rs 42,000 crore for a 12-million tonne integrated steel plant, in Orissa it intends to pump in nearly Rs 22,000 crore for a six-million-tonne unit.

The steel major also plans to invest Rs 18,000 crore for setting up a five-million-tonne steel plant in Chhattisgarh. For all the proposed greenfield projects, the company is in the process of acquiring land and mineral linkages.