Vikis isteel goes for branding

Steel bars are not something that one would normally associate with branding. And that too, the ones used for construction. But in a poioneering initiative, a Chennai-based firm has taken the lead to come out with branded steel bars for construction industry.

Viki Industries (P) Ltd, the company in question, hopes to create for itself a space between the organised steel giants like Tata Steel, SAIL, Vizag Steel etc on the one side and the huge unorganised sector on the other. According to G Gautam Reddy, CEO, "our main endeavor behind this is to educate customers about the right quality and quantity of steel. We have named the brand isteel."

Reddy says yet another advantage for the consumers would be reasonable prices and reduction in the quantity of steel required. "Currently organised players have priced construction bars at around Rs 32,000 per tonne while the unorganised sector prices are around Rs 27,000 per tonne. We intend to price our product at Rs 30,000 per tonne. Our target is to garner a market share of around 10-15 percent," he added.

Highlighting the potential, Reddy says on an average around 30-35,000 tonne of construction steel bars are sold in Chennai every month. "Our advantage is that we use metal scrap as our raw material and are not dependent on coking coal. In addition, we have our own captive power plant of 5 MW."

Talking about the financials, Reddy said the company is on course to achieve a turnover of Rs 70 crore this fiscal compared to Rs 55 crore last year. The company, which has its plant at Gummidipoondi, near Chennai, produces around 50,000 tonne per annum of steel bars and is also exploring options of exports to African countries.

isteel has already been used in some projects like the Govt Hospital, Chennai and the response from the trade has been extremely encouraging. The product is available in 8-25 mm bars and uses the thermo mechanical treatment (TMT) technology.

Going forward Viki plans to extend the isteel range to corrosion resistant bars, spring steel and alloy steel also, said Reddy. "We have also lined up other backward integration programmes that will make us debt-free in six months. Our current debt stands at around Rs 70-80 crore," he added

Forest SOS on illegal mining

The forest department has flashed an alert to the government on the increased illegal mining in the mineral-rich West Singhbhum district following the spurt in demand for iron ore.

The West Singhbhum forest department has written a letter to the government, informing it about the rampant illegal iron ore mining taking place in the district. It has requested the government to take steps to curb such illegal activities.

If forest officials are to be believed, those resorting to illegal mining are targeting the mines which have either stopped operations or have been abandoned. There are several such mines in West Singhbhum. Since not much attention is paid to these mines, the iron ore pilferers have preferred to carry out such illegal activities in those mines, the official said.

Mines and geology minister Madhu Koda expressed ignorance about the illegal mining taking place in the district.

I am not aware of any letter that has been written by the department to the government. So far I have not received any complaint about any illegal mining in West Singhbhum from my own department. I have directed the mines inspectors of West Singhbhum to keep tabs on any illegal mining taking place in West Singhbhum, he said

2,154 mt of coal reserves found in '04

EXPLORATION carried out by the Geological Survey of India, the Coal Mining Planning and Development Institute (CMPDI) and other agencies have discovered an additional reserve of 2,154 million tonnes of various grades of coal during 2004.

With this, the estimated coal reserves in the country at the beginning of the current year stand at 2,47,847 mt, against 2,45,693 mt in the beginning of 2004, according to Coal Ministry officials.

Encouraged by the new findings, the Government has decided to strongly pursue further mining of coal by companies to which coal blocks have been allotted.

This is because it has been found that various agencies, both State-owned and those in the private sector, which have been allotted coal blocks, are often slow in carrying out the necessary development and mining activities.

To put an end to this and ensure that mining in allocated blocks is taken up expeditiously, instructions have been issued to those companies that have been allocated coal blocks but have not yet purchased the geological report from CMPDI within six weeks, failing which the coal blocks allocated to them could be considered for de-allocation, officials said. They also said some other measures in this direction are under consideration.

The Coal Controller has been designated to monitor the progress of work in the allocated coal blocks. Review of the progress will be taken up periodically. In the case of unsatisfactory progress, the blocks will be de-allocated to more desiring applicants, officials said

Chandra Prabhu opens unit for mining

Chandra Prabhu International Ltd said Thursday that the company has formed a subsidiary to diversify its operations in the areas of mining and provide management and engineering consultancy.

South West Drilling and Infrastructure will undertake mining, drilling, excavation, transportation, querying work, civil construction work and infrastructure development, said a company statement. The proposed subsidiary will also take on lease mines in India or overseas.

South West Drilling will also provide management, consultancy, engineering, advisory, technical and liaison services business procurement services, and technical know-how

Posco looks to tackle China competition

Posco, the world's fifth-largest steelmaker, yesterday said it might cut prices of lower-grade products to cope with cheap competition from China, which is rapidly building up capacity.

But the South Korean company said it had no plans to cut prices of higher-end products such as steel sheets used for cars and ships, because demand remained solid, in spite of concerns about oversupply. "Prices of higher-grade products remain strong. But lower-grade products are problematic, because we can't avoid price competition with China in that segment," Oh Chang-kwon, senior vice-president, told investors

Isdemir Makes Record $400 Million Profit

The state-owned Iskenderun Iron and Steel Works (ISDEMIR) has achieved production objectives set for the first half of 2005.

ISDEMIR, Turkey's most costly Public Economic Enterprise has profited after its administration was entrusted to Eregli Iron and Steel Works (ERDEMIR).

According to ISDEMIR data for the first six months of 2005, 1.2 million tons of product sale have been achieved, 635,300 tons in the domestic market and 370,900 tons abroad. A revenue of $400 million, $252 million from the domestic market and $148 million from exports was acquired.

The revenue was $16.5 million more than the 2004 value for the same term. In the first half of the year, 37.1 percent of the revenue came from exports, whereas in 2004 export revenues had constituted of 33.8 percent of the total revenue of the same period

IOC tells China to slow Olympic building

When it comes to preparing for the Olympics, Beijing is no Athens. Whereas the Greek capital's preparations for last year's games went down to the line, Beijing is sailing along - and there's still three years to go.

China was going so fast, in fact, that International Olympic Committee officials had to convince it to slow down, warning that finishing venues too early could incur huge maintenance and financing costs.

"Olympic venue construction is advancing smoothly and construction of new venues will soon be in full swing," Liu Qi, president of the Beijing organizing committee, or BOCOG, assured in an address at this week's IOC meeting in Singapore.

It's hard to overstate the importance of the Beijing games to China. Winning hosting rights was a source of huge national pride and credited as a major achievement for the Communist Party that has been seeking to shore up its shaky legitimacy with appeals to nationalism.

That pride has translated into strong government support in the preparation stage, in contrast to the massive construction and organizational delays that followed Greece's winning of its bid.

Beijing expects to spend $2 billion on venues, but has earmarked a further $24.2 billion for new subway lines, roads and other infrastructure.

Steelworkers welcome Ontario Government support for position on Stelco Inc. restructuring

United Steelworkers' National Director Ken Neumann said Friday the letter received from the Ontario Government's steel industry adviser could be a real basis for solving Stelco Inc.'s restructuring for the benefit of everyone.

"We applaud the government's leadership on this issue," said Neumann. "We believe this indication of support from the government will go a long way toward protecting pensioners, workers and the community, and can be a guide to Stelco emerging from CCAA with sufficient capitalization," Neumann said.

Back in April, the United Steelworkers agreed to a letter of intent with Tricap, which proposed a commitment to arrange or provide a total of $1.35 billion in new capital comprised of:
- A C$600 million revolving line of credit;
- A C$350 million term loan; and
- An underwriting commitment to backstop C$400 million of equity-linked securities, to be offered to existing stakeholders

The Proceeds would be applied as follows:
- C$500 million will be immediately contributed to Stelco's pension plans;
- Approximately C$100 million will be used to repay existing Stelco secured indebtedness; and
- C$750 million will be retained within Stelco to fund its capital expenditure process and for general corporate purposes.

Statistics place Ohio as a steel leader

Ohio remains a leader in steel production despite the current soft market and industry consolidation during the past three years.

Ohio, for instance, remains the top state in steel production and processing, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute. With 156 firms, Ohio has 35,705 people employed in steel production, representing a payroll of $1.82 billion and $5.92 billion in value-added steel production. That figure represents all who work with steel.

Those figures outstrip second-place Indiana, with 31,981 workers earning a payroll of $1.76 billion and producing $4.63 billion in value-added steel through 89 firms; and third-place Pennsylvania, with 31,551 workers at 164 plants producing $3.37 billion in product on a $1.55 billion payroll.

POSCO sees stable stainless steel prices after Q4

POSCO , the world's fifth-largest steel maker, expects falling stainless steel prices to stabilize after the fourth quarter, Chief Financial Officer Lee Dong-hee said on Friday.

The South Korean steel maker previously scaled back its stainless steel output by 5 percent from its 2005 production target citing global oversupply concerns