Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited, the corporate entity of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, has achieved a turnover of ₹12,700 crore during April-December 2019 despite a turbulent market.
Addressing the employees on the New Year, RINL Chairman-cum-Managing Director P.K. Rath said the exports recorded a growth of 119% and the sale of value-added steel had also seen a growth of 79%. The inventory level was brought down to below four lakh tonne by December-end, he said.
The CMD said that the steel industry was showing signs of improvement in the country with the introduction of several new initiatives by the government in boosting spending on infrastructure, construction and automobile sectors. Mr. Rath said that many steel companies in the world were under severe stress in 2019 and the rise in raw material prices like coking coal and iron ore severely impacted the entire steel industry’s bottom-line. RINL was no exception to this development, he said.
“The RINL leadership has taken several new initiatives to face the challenges and even with lower production, achieved improvement in techno-economic parameters such as improvement of blast furnace productivity and usage of pulverised chemical injection in all blast furnaces,” Mr. Rath said. He stressed on improving PCI to around 150 kg/tonne hot metal in Q4 to reduce the cost of production and improve blast furnace productivity.
Mr. Rath stated that on the raw material securitisation, RINL had started participating in e-auctions, tender route, procuring of slimes to supplement iron ore fines in sinter plant. Actions were also initiated for tie-up with Orissa Mining Corporation (OMC), he added.
RINL has a history of converting challenges into opportunities, the CMD said, and called upon the employees to exhibit utmost discipline and work collectively, supplemented with an emotional attachment to propel the company on a continuous growth path.
RINL Directors K.C. Das, V.V. Venugopal Rao, D.K. Mohanty, K.K. Ghosh, A.K. Saxena, Chief Vigilance Officer P.J. Vijayakar, Executive Director K.V. Vidya Sagar and others were present.
