Bhubaneswar: Pig iron market is expected to start reviving
from the second half of 2014 which is struggling with poor demand currently.
Industries see the situation will gradually be back on track only after the
political situation stabilises after the 2014 general elections.
“I
feel that from the second half of 2014 the market will be back on track, but
the current situation is gloom. There are number of Pig Iron plants,which have been
shut down because of losses or due to poor demand. We have been able to sale it
because what we have done is, we have divided the product in to many hundred
small customers rather than depending upon few big customers. So we have been
able to insulate ourselves from the poor demand situation by not fully
depending on few big buyers” said Rita Singh, Chairperson and Managing Director
of MESCO Steel.
However, she admitted that the exit of Nilachal Ispat Nigam Ltd(NINL),the biggest
producer and exporter, from the pig iron market is going to help the company.
“The
exit of NINL will definitely help us, but we would not like to be confined to Pig
Iron only, rather we are also focusing on making Steel” she added.
NINL, is gradually
exiting from the pig iron market and focusing more on making billets. The PSU
jointly promoted by MMTC and Odisha Government, used to produce 65,000 tonne
pig iron every month, and had recently slashed output to less than 50,000 per
month as it is keeping some amount of hot metal for billet making. For 2013-14,
it has announced to produce 400,000 tonne of pig iron and billet. In the
subsequent years, pig iron production is likely to decline as the company
intends to produce 1.1 million tonne billets.
Current pig iron prices in Indian market are stable, fall in imports of ferrous scrap will lend support to prices. Currently prices are hovering in the range of Rs 22500-23000/t (Basic) at Cuttack and Rs 24,000/t (Basic) at Raigarh and Rs 24,800/t (Basic) at Raipur.
Reported by Tapan Moharana
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