Indian steelmaker Essar Steel claims to have ‘substantially improved’ its performance for the year ended 31 March 2017. Total flat steel production for the period was 5.6Mt (up 47%) when compared with the last financial year’s figure of 3.8Mt. Pellet production was up by 60% to 9.3Mt, up from 5.8Mt from 2015/16.
According to Essar Steel, one of India's leading integrated steel producers with an annual production capacity of 20Mt/yr, value added steel production has rise 20% to 2.8Mt, against 2.3Mt the previous year.
During Q4 ended 31 March, the steelmaker recorded growth of 25% in flat steel production (1.5mt against 1.2Mt the previous year). The company also recorded growth of 21% in pellet production (2.3Mt over 1.9Mt the year before).
Dilip Oommen, CEO and managing director of Essar Steel, said the company had made a quantum leap in performance. He said that Essar’s growth in the last fiscal reflected the company’s march towards full capacity utilisation in coming years.
“The value added component in the product mix has also jumped significantly,” Oommen said, adding that Essar’s downstream units were operating at capacity levels.
Speaking broadly, Oommen said that various measures taken by the Indian Ministry of Steel ‘led to the performance improvement of the steel sector’. He said that there is a need for continuity ‘of those measures’ to ensure the steel sector can sustain the momentum gained ‘and moves forward towards continued growth’.