Despite lean season, SAIL's domestic sales surpass 1 MT

India's largest steel maker Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) on Thursday said its domestic saleable steel sales rose 8.5 per cent to cross the 1 million tonnes (MT) mark in July.

"Despite onset of lean season on account of monsoon, company's domestic sales crossed 1 MT of saleable steel which is an increase of 8.5 per cent over the same month last year," the state-run company said in a statement.

SAIL said it has witnessed a good start to the second quarter of the financial year 2016-17 by achieving 15 per cent growth in its total sales including exports for the month of July compared to the same period last year.

Attributing the growth to strengthening its customer centric processes, SAIL Chairman P K Singh said, "We are striving to produce higher net sales realisation products through ramping up our new facilities and completing the balance modernisation projects."

At the same time, the firm is exploring new markets, both domestic and overseas, he added.

"The company continues to focus on cost reduction initiatives and we hope to serve the market better with our enriched product basket," Singh said.

On the production front, July witnessed a 16 per cent growth in saleable steel production at 1.16 MT against the year-ago period.

Techno-economic parameters also registered an improvement over July 2015 with 11 per cent improvement in BF (blast furnace) productivity and 4 per cent in coke rate.

The ramping up of new mills contributed to the enhanced production resulting in higher sales through supply of improved products to the market, SAIL said.