JSW Steel’s targeted export volumes for July have been revised higher to about 4.25 lakh tonnes against the previous 3.70 lakh tonnes from its Vijayanagar. Total exports targeted in June were at about 4 lakh tonnes, it is learned.
Total sales and despatch plans for July 2020 are set at around 9.20 lakh tonnes, a tad lower from the 9.70 lakh tonnes planned for June 2020. In this corpus, the target for domestic sales is ~5 lakh tonnes.
In June, however, despite the 9.70 lakh tonnes target, the company’s actual exports and domestic sales fell short at over 6.6 lakh tonnes, with exports crossing 3.7 lakh tonnes and domestic sales at about 3 lakh tonnes.
The shortfall was on account of the plant being hit by COVID-19 infections that led to a slight drop in production.
JSW is currently exporting at a rate of 5.5 -6.0 lakh tonnes per month from Vijaynagar (~4.25 lakh tonnes) and Dolvi (~1.5 lakh tonnes).
Production ramp-up
SteelMint has learned that all the four blast furnaces are operational at the Bellary plant and that production has been ramped up to 85-90%.
Production at the sprawling Vijayanagar plant of JSW Steel at present is touching 26,000-28,000 tonnes per day (tpd). The plant has a hot metal production capacity of 33,000-34,000 tonnes per day (tpd) and a total capacity of 12 million tonnes (mn t) per annum, though, after wastage etc, it touches around 11 mn t.
COVID-19 aftermath
After being hit by COVID-19 infections, of the 30,000-odd employees of the Vijayanagar plant, 10,275 employees were told to stay at home. However, now that normalcy is returning, many of them are being recalled, a source in the company said. “We don’t allow anyone to leave the plant premises and are encouraging many employees to reside within the premises to decrease chances of infections,” the source informed.
It was also heard that the company has sent a message to its employees that they should leave their parents at their ancestral homes as a precaution and that some employees already have or are in the process of doing so. However, the company source denied it, saying such an initiative would involve travel and that would increase the chances of contracting infections.
Photo Credit: World Steel
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