Tata Steel is focussing on adding capacity in the flat steel segment in India. The company's Managing Director, Mr H.M. Nerurkar, said that most of the ongoing expansion projects are in the flat steel segment.
“We are on track to complete expansion projects by the end of the year, taking our production capacity in India up to 9.7 MTPA,” said Mr Nerurkar.
Out of the total capacity, 6.4 MTPA capacity will be for flat steel products while 3.3 MTPA will be for long steel products.
“We are investing mainly in flat steel capacities. For long steel we will be de-bottlenecking the current capacities,” added Mr Nerurkar.
The company expects to have a worldwide production capacity of nearly 31 MTPA by the end of the fiscal, of which 18.4 MTPA is in Europe while India will have 9.7 MTPA and the remaining is in South-East Asia.
Demand pressures in Europe
The company also announced its financial results and its Indian operations reported a 36 per cent increase in net profit for 2010-11 fiscal at Rs 6,886 crore. The company's turnover in India registered a growth of 17.6 per cent at Rs 29,073 crore.
Tata Steel's European operations continue to suffer from lower capacity utilisation mainly on account of low demand. “Our current capacity utilisation rate in Europe is 89 per cent. The deficit in the demand levels between now and pre-crisis levels is about 20 per cent so it is not the right time to increase capacity utilisation,” said Mr Karl-Ulrich Kohler.
He added, “Looking forward, our production in Europe will continue to face pressures from the demand side. Also, the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme, which will start in one-and-a-half years, will put a cap on emissions from industries.”