Bhilai Steel to make more flats

Bhilai Steel Plant, the most profit making unit of Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL), will be re-orienting its product mix in favour of flat products, for better net sales realisation.

At present, Bhilai only had a plate mill and flat products accounted for 26 per cent of its production. R P Singh, managing director Bhilai said, post-modernisationflat products would account for 42-43 per cent of its production.Singh said, the unit would manufacture hot rolled products of the finest quality with minimum thickness.

Consequently, Bhilai would bring down its share of semis to six per cent from the present 26-27 per cent.

The main reason behind re-orienting product-mix was better net sales realisation. Singh said, flat products producers were getting much better net sales realisation.

The product-mix plan was part of Bhilai's modernisation and capacity enhancement programme. Bhilai planned to take its capacity to seven million tonne from the present 4.74 million tonne at an investment of Rs 9,000 crore.

Singh said, bulk of the investment, to the tune of Rs 5,000 crore would be made in 2005-06.

The company had prepared the project report, which would be placed before the SAIL board and then IFCI would study the feasibility of the programme.

After the implementation of the expansion programme, Bhilai was looking at a profit of Rs 5,000-6,000 crore. Bhilai earned a net profit of Rs 1,284 crore in the first half of the current financial year and was targeting a net profit of more than Rs 1,500 crore in the second half.

Bhilai is also looking at exploiting mining opportunities in Raoghat. There were plans of setting up a crushing and sintering plant at an investment of Rs 1,000 crore.

For this purpose, Bhilai would have to invest in putting up a railway line at an investment of Rs 350 crore. This was part of the expansion programme for 2012.