Finished Steel Production Drops By 1.7% In April

The production and consumption of finished steel in the country has declined in the first month of the current fiscal in what appears to be a continuing trend in the domestic steel industry.

In April 1997, total production of finished steel fell by 1.7 per cent to touch 1.8 million tonnes, while that by main producers including Steel Authority of India (SAIL) and Tata Iron and Steel Co (Tisco) declined by 8.8 per cent.

Consumption of finished steel fell to 1.56 million tonnes, registering a 3.7 per cent decline.

The total export of finished steel dropped sharply by 28.6 per cent in the period to 75,000 tonnes against 105,000 tonnes in the previous year.

 

The integrated steel plants of SAIL (excluding IISCO) produced hot metal (953,000 tonnes), crude steel (835,000 tonnes) and saleable steel (677,000 tonnes), representing 102 per cent, 91 per cent and 96 per cent of the targets respectively.

On a cumulative basis, production of saleable steel in the integrated and special steel plants of SAIL has been 703,000 tonnes which represents a 3 per cent decrease over previous years production. The Visakhapatnam steel plant produced 220,000 tonnes of hot metal, 177,000 tonnes of liquid steel, 125,000 tonnes of saleable steel and 33,000 tonnes of pig iron.