SAIL achieves Rs 1,835 crore profit in April-June

ROURKELA: Higher sales volume, increase in special (value added) steel production, better operational efficiencies and higher interest earnings enabled the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) to achieve a profit (after tax) of Rs.1835 crores during A pril-June, 2008, showing 20.3 per cent growth over the corresponding period last year.

The financial performance has improved despite a burden of Rs 1,434 crores on account of substantially higher cost of inputs such as coal, freight, ferro-alloys, fuel and higher wage revision, a RSP 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 last year's same period.

During the first quarter, 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 has commenced and were progressing as per 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 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 has improved by two per cent to 530 kg per tonne of hot metal in quarter one from 539 during the period last year. - PTI