India’s state-owned steelmaker, Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) expects its exports to reach 1.3mn mt by the end of FY 2021. The volume also includes orders of over 200,000mt for steel exports in March. The company in a tweet, claims the volume to be the highest ever to be shipped in overseas markets. Products exported include finished and semi-finished steel.
Last year, the company had exported around 500,000mt of steel products. The rise in exports in FY 2021 is by 160pc from FY 2020.
In the initial months of the year, the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting lockdown in India forced steelmakers to seek sales in overseas markets. Economic activities in India remained hit impacting downstream demand. Steelmakers were even forced to idle their furnaces. As the year progressed, the domestic market recovered with mills shifting their focus on sales in the Indian markets.
RINL’s daily hot metal production from three blast furnaces is 19,000mt with capacity utilization of around 100pc. Thus the company has enough surplus to exports after catering to the domestic market. In February, RINL exported around 60,000mt of steel. Between April to Dec 2020, the company’s exports had surpassed 1mn mt.