SAIL expansion: Chairman A K Chaudhary unveils details about phases

The expansion of SAIL's production capacity to 50 million tonnes per annum will be done in two phases, company's Chairman Anil Kumar Chaudhary has said. In December 2018, Chaudhary announced an expansion plan for the company. He had said that by 2030-31, the PSU would ramp up production capacity to 50 MTPA from about 21.4 MTPA at present.

"The expansion will be in two phases. In the first phase, we intend to reach 35 MTPA by 2025-2026, and the rest 15 MTPA in the second phase will be completed by March 31, 2031," he said.

He further said the country needs steel over a period of time and as demand grows the supply grows too. "In the steel industry, 100 per cent capacity utilisation takes time. It takes at least three years for the capacity to be ramped up. In the first year 50 per cent can be achieved, In the second year 70 per cent, In the third year 90 per cent and then maybe in the fourth year you see 100 per cent capacity utilisation," the chairman said. According to an industry expert, to add 1 million tonnes of capacity, it would cost around Rs 6,000 crore.

SAIL, under Ministry of Steel, is the country's largest steel producer. The PSU has set 17.5 million tonne steel production as a target for the new financial year.

The company produced 16.3 MT of crude steel during the 2018-19 financial year, registering a rise of 8 per cent over the previous year.

(With inputs from agencies.)