RSP maintains growth momentum with record performance

Rourkela, Aug 03 (UNI) The Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP), a unit of Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), continued its growth momentum with an outstanding performance during the first four months of this fiscal and an impressive production during July.

The plant produced 1,95,031 tonnes of hot metal, 1,82,002 tonnes of crude steel and 1,73,167 tonnes of saleable steel during July, registering an impressive capacity utilisation of 115 per cent, 113 per cent and 122 per cent respectively.

Company sources said the production of hot metal and crude steel was best ever for any month of July since inception.

The steel plant achieved output levels of 0.739 million tonnes of hot metal, 0.694 million tonnes of crude steel, 0.623 million tonnes of saleable steel and dispatch of 0.643 million tonnes of finished products during April-July, registering a growth of 6.3 per cent, 8.8 per cent, 7.5 per cent and 8.4 per cent respectively compared to the corresponding period of last year.

During this period, the plant's finishing units - Plate Mill, Hot Strip Mill, Cold Rolling Mills, both Spiral Weld (SW) and Electric Resistance Weld (ERW) Pipe Plants as well as Silicon Steel Mill - registered outputs that were higher compared to the orresponding period of the fiscal 2007-08.

RSP sources said improvement in operating parameters led to improvements in energy consumption and brought down the cost of production. As a result, the steel plant made a profit of Rs 382 crore during April-June 2008, highest for any Q-1 since inception of the plant.

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