Essar Steel's finished steel production from its Indian operations recorded a robust growth of 35.44 per cent year-on-year to 1.07 million tonnes in the first quarter of the current fiscal from 0.79 mt during April-June, 2010.
The company’s crude steel output also saw a healthy growth of 41 per cent in the April-June quarter of the current fiscal vis-a-vis the year-ago period.
“Operating from India’s largest, single location production facility at Hazira, in Gujarat, Essar Steel recorded over 41 per cent growth in crude steel output during the April-June quarter over the comparable quarter last year,” the company said in a statement.
Production during the quarter rose to 1.14 mt from 0.81 mt in the corresponding quarter last fiscal.
Essar Steel, a part of the $17-billion Ruias-led Essar Group, is close to completing the expansion of its steel-making capacity to 10 mtpa.
“As part of this expansion, Essar Steel has started production from two iron-making units — a blast furnace with a capacity of 1.73 mt and a DRI unit of 1.74 mt, a conarc furnace of 2.5 mt, a continuous caster of 1.45 mt and a CSP mill of 3.5 mtpa,” the statement said.
Further, the company also recently commissioned a plate mill with a capacity of 1.5 mtpa.
With a global production capacity of 14 mtpa, Essar Steel has a presence in North America, Europe, the Middle East and South East Asia, the UK, UAE and Indonesia.
The company operates nine steel processing and distribution centres globally, with an aggregate capacity of over 4.5 mt. It also claims to have the largest retail channel for steel products through 620 Essar Hypermarts.