JSW Steel today reported a marginal growth of 0.33 per cent in its crude steel production at 6.03 lakh tonnes in November due to iron ore shortages and shutdown of one of its units.

The company had produced 6.01 lakh tonnes crude steel in November 2011.

Moreover, capacity utilisation of its 10-million tonne steel plant at Vijayanagar in Karnataka has also gone down to 70 per cent “due to acute shortage and inferior quality of iron ore in e-auctions,” the company said in a statement.

The Sajjan Jindal-led company has been struggling to keep its production at optimum levels for more than a year now due to continuous shortage of iron ore — a key raw material for steel making.

The production was also impacted by a planned shutdown of one of its units of 0.80 million tonne per annum producing capacity since October 15.

“The company has taken shutdown of one of its corex furnaces for capital repairs and capacity enhancement during October 2012 and the same is expected to re-start in January, 2013,” JSW said.

In November, production of flat products grew 20 per cent to 5.15 lakh tonnes from 4.28 lakh tonnes in the same month last year. Besides, long products registered a growth of 30 per cent to 1.67 lakh tonnes.

Flat products are used for consumer durables and fast moving consumer goods sector, while long products are meant for the construction sector.

Shares of JSW were being quoted at Rs 733.90 apiece during the late afternoon trade on the BSE, down 2.27 per cent from their previous close.

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