Steel ministry sets up coking coal procurement panel

Friday, 02 Dec 2011

ET reported that steel ministry has set up a committee to look into the need for rationalising the procedure followed by steel PSUs for procurement of coking coal.

Mr Beni Prasad Verma steel minister said that "A committee has recently been constituted in the ministry for looking into the need for rationalising the procurement procedure for coking coal, acquisition of mines abroad and optimising the use of coking coal by steel PSUs.”

Replying to a question on whether the government was aware that during the last two years, SAIL and RINL have made purchases of coking coal at a time when the price was very high in international markets, he said this was a commercial decision of the companies.

The minister said that "This (procurement) is done as per their requirements under a laid down policy through long term agreement. As per international market practice, quantities under LTA are settled annually by the empowered joint committee which comprises representatives of both Steel Authority of India and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam.

"While negotiating quantities and prices with long-term suppliers, EJC takes the FOB (free-on-board) prices settled by Japanese steel mills and others as reported in the international journals as the benchmark.”

The minister added that "The annual requirement is tied up at the beginning of the year and the same is confirmed and received quarter-wise throughout the year.”

Mr Verma said prices of imported coking coal were up by 75 per cent in 2010-11 vis-a-vis the previous fiscal, affecting the profit margins of steel-makers.

(Sourced from ET)

RINL unveils further expansion plans

Monday, 07 Feb 2011
Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited on Sunday unveiled investment plans to expand its capacity to 8.4 million tonnes per annumof steel in the next five years.
Mr PK Bishnoi CMD of RINL told media persons in Bhubaneswar that RINL would add an additional production of 3 million tonnrs steel with an investment of INR 12,500 crore from the next fiscal.
He said “We will add another 1 million tonne of steel with an investment of INR 7,000 crore from the year 2013-14. We will appoint a consultant in next ten days for this purpose. It will increase the company’s capacity to 7.3 million tonnes.”
Mr Bishnoi said that the company plans to produce4.4 million tonnes of high quality steel of with an investment of INR 25,000 crore from the financial year 2014-15 because the consumption of steel will go up with the urbanization of India.
He added that “After expansion plan of RINL, we want to set up new steel plants in Orissa, Jharkhand and Rajasthan. We have signed a MoU with the Karnataka based Kudurnor Iron Company Ltd for setting up a steel plant.”