PTI reported that state run SAIL will add over 6 million tonne per annum steel making capacity in the current fiscal to take the total to 19.5 million tonne per annum as part of its ongoing INR 61,870 crore CAPEX program.

MR CS Verma chairman of SAIL told PTI that "Major portion of the ongoing expansion will be completed by the end of this fiscal. Expansions at Durgapur, Rourkela and Burnpur will be completed this fiscal taking our capacity to 19.5 million tonne per annum.”

The current hot metal capacity of the company stands at 13.82 million tonne per annum. It had embarked on INR 61,870 crore capacity expansion program across all its five major steel plants in 2006-07 to jack up the capacity to 23.46 million tonne.

Stating that the capacity expansion at Bhilai Steel Plant would be completed within the next fiscal, Mr Verma said by 2014-15, all the proposed expansions would be over. Two blast furnaces of 2.8 million tonne per annum capacity each at Rourkela and Burnpur would help the company to reach the capacity to 19.5 million tonne per annum.

Out of the total planned CAPEX, SAIL had earmarked INR 39,131 crore for capacity expansion; INR 7,039 crore for value-addition or product-mix improvement; INR 3,509 crore for technological up-gradation or modernization and INR 6,909 crore for de-bottlenecking.

Source - PTI