Tata Steel to acquire more steel plants abroad

2005-01-11

Tata Steel is planning to become a company with a 15 million tonne production capacity by 2010, according to its Managing Director B Muthuraman. During the current year, it will look at acquiring another overseas steel plant to augment the capacity or the company. "After taking over Singapore based Natsteel. the company is going to acquire the second overseas plant'. Muthuraman. He also said that Tata was looking for a suitable silo to set up a three-million tonne steel plain in the country, At present the Jamshodpur unit manufacturers five million tonnes of steel. "It was also constructing a six-million tonne capacity steel plant in Orissa at an estimated cost or Rs 15000 crore", he said. In the next phase, the company would add another 2.4 million tonne capacity to the Jamshedpur unit. Tata Steel has produced 3.13 ml saleable steel, 2 per cent higher than the volumes in the corresponding period last year. On the other hand the public sector steel giant. Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) has hiked the prices of flat and long products by an average three per cent per tonne. "The average increase in prices of flat products is Rs 500 per tonne, while the prices or long products have also been increased marginally', a SAIL spokesman said. The spiralling input costs, due to railway freight hike in essential stool inputs for the steel industry, has forced the SAIL, management to increase the prices. The decision to increase the prices was taken during the monthly review meeting held late last week. "Our competitors have increased the prices after the freight hike due to which we were forced to increase the prices due to market conditions." the spokesman added. In flat products the prices have been increased by an average 4-5 per cent. Last month Tata Steel also increased the prices of all its products by an average Hs 500 per tonne. The Railways had hiked the freight charges of key inputs of the steel industry including coal and iron ore in November, 2004 forcing the steel industry to review its prices. Industry sources say, that other major steel producers are also contemplating hiking their prices due to strain on input costs.