Posted on 29 Apr 2016
Mixed picture in steel output last year
Tough market conditions saw a drop in capacity
utilisation for Rashtriya Ispat Nigam (RINL), JSW Steel and Jindal Steel
& Power (JSPL) in 2015-16. Tata Steel, Essar Steel and
government-owned Steel Authority of India, however, showed an
improvement in the ratio of actual production to total capacity.
According to official data, utilisation at India’s largest private
producer in the segment, JSW Steel, fell from 90 per cent in 2014-15 to
76 per cent in 2015-16. The company had a working capacity of 16.6
million tonnes (mt) and produced 12.6 mt. RINL,also government-owned,
saw utilisation fall from 113 per cent in 2014-15 to 58 per cent in
2015-16. This was mainly due to large scale increase in its working
capacity from 2.9 mt in 2014-15 to 6.3 mt in 2015-16, which it was
unable to exploit properly. JSPL's utilisation decreased from 89 per
cent in 2014-15 to 79 per cent in 2015-16. While production capacity
remained the same at four mt in both years, production decreased from
3.55 mt in 2014-15 to 3.17 mt in 2015-16.
The three companies did not respond to questions sent by Business Standard.
National steel capacity utilisation decreased from 81 per cent in
2014-15 to 76 per cent in 2015-16. Last year, we had the capacity to
produce 118.2 mt but produced 89.7 mt. Essar's utilisation increased
from 33 per cent in 2014-15 to 37 per cent in 2015-16.
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“We have ramped up the production since November
last year. Targeted production in the current year is 80-85 per cent,”
said an Essar spokesperson to this newspaper.
SAIL saw its utilisation increase from 79 per cent in FY15 to 82 per
cent in FY16. It is the largest producer, with FY15 output at 14.2 mt.
Last year, it was 17.5 mt. "We're ramping up capacity to 21.5 mt of
crude steel in the next two years. SAIL plans to produce around 17 mt
during 2016-17,” the company spokesperson said.
