Indian private maker Tata Steel recorded the highest level of crude steel production of 19.9Mt and sales of 18.9Mt between April 2022 and March 2023.
Volume production at Indian plants rose 4.3% year-over-year thanks to debottlenecking of enterprises and ramp-up of Neelachal Ispat Nigam Limited's production at Kalinganagar in Odisha, the company said. Steel production in January-March increased by 5.1% year-on-year to 5.15 million tons.
Supplies rose by 3.3% year-on-year, despite the unstable operating environment in during the fiscal year, Tata said, adding that domestic shipments rose 10% year-on-year. In May-November last year, the Indian government introduced an export duty of 15% on a number of steel products. Its shipments rose 1% year-on-year to 5.2 million tonnes in January-March.
Tata Steel's domestic shipments for automotive and specialty products rose 5% year-over-year to 2. 7 million tons in 2022-2023. Sales of branded products and the retail segment rose 11% year-on-year to 5.9 million tons, while shipments of industrial products and projects grew 14% year-on-year to 7.2 million tons in 2022-23, the company said.
Direct reduced iron production of Tata Steel Long Products, a subsidiary of Tata, in April-March fell by 12% year-on-year to 737,000 tons, while sales during this period decreased by 16% year-on-year to 497,000 tonnes as one of the two divisions has been operating as a conversion division for Tata Steel since the end of November 2022, the report said.
Tata Steel Long Products' crude steel production increased by 33% over the period year-over-year to 910,000 tons, while salable steel sales rose 26% to 822,000 tons thanks to NINL's new products. Between October 2022 and March 2023, NINL produced 202,000 tons of steel and 167,000 tons of commercial steel.
NINL began operations in October 2022, within three months of completing the acquisition, and has grown steadily over the past two quarters, with current crude steel and pig iron production at around 1 million tonnes year on year, the company said.
