October, 30 2005
RINLs Vizag Steel Plants expansion details
The Rs. 8,692 crore expansion plan of RINLs Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, which has received the Union Cabinet's nod, will be completed by 2007-08, producing 6.30 million tonnes of liquid steel, according to its CMD Mr Y Siva Sagar Rao. "It is indeed a great moment for the VSP collective, which has been pressing for clearance of this expansion, since 2004-end,'' an exuberant CMD told during a media conference
This expansion would be executed in two phases of 36 months and 48 months each respectively
In the first phase, hot metal production from BF would be raised from 4 million tonnes to 6.5 million tonnes; liquid steel from SMS from 3.5 million tonnes to 6.3 million tonnes and salable steel from 3.34 million tonnes to 5.72 million tonnes. The capacity of wire rod mill will be increased from 1.05 million tonnes to 1.65 million tonnes and a new seamless pipe mill of 0.3 million tonnes capacity will be installed
The second phase would see the special bar mill raising its output from 0.9 million tonnes to 1.65 million tonnes in 45 months; and the structural mill from 1.05 million tonnes to 1.75 million tonnes in 48 months.
Mr Siva Sagar Rao said VSP would continue to produce long products in the first phase in view of the company's brand image and to meet the envisaged demand for wire rods like medium and high carbon coils, case hardening coils, cold headed quality coils, electrode quality and spring steel coils; seamless pipes, coupling pipes, liner pipes, boiler tubes; and billets. In the second phase, special coils would be produced to meet the demand of the automobile and oil and gas units and structural such as plain and round re-bars.
Govt to focus on mega thermal stations
With the ongoing fuel shortage taking its toll on the power sector, the Ministry of Power has decided to shift its thermal generation strategy in favor of setting up mega thermal stations of around 3,000 to 4,000 MW capacity, either along the coastline or at pithead sites for supplying power to more than one State.
Following a review meeting here on generation capacity addition chaired by the Power Minister, Mr PM Sayeed, the Ministry has directed the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) to identify coastal and pithead sites for setting up these mega thermal stations. The CEA has been asked to complete the exercise over the next three months.
Government fails to install scanning machines at seaports & ICDs
The government has failed to install scanning devices at the country's seaports and inland container depot ICD and, despite two years of efforts to strengthen the security system and official sources acknowledged that little progress had so far been made. Officials, however, identified non availability of fund as the key obstacle
TopTwo power plants to come up at Tuticorin port
Two thermal power plants, each of 500 MW capacities, will be set up at the Tuticorin port as per the MoU signed by port authorities with the Neyveli Lignite Corporation. The JV, at a total cost of Rs 4.6 billion on 133 hectares of port land, will be called NLC Tamil Nadu Power Limited and the plants will begin production in 2009.
Port authorities said about 5.5 million tonnes of thermal coal will be handled every year in Tuticorin through a captive jetty for the plants. This jetty will be set up as a part of the port's inner harbor development
GMR bags Rs 1,500 crore highway projects
GMR Group has announced that it has won three road projects worth Rs 1,500 crore amidst stiff competition. The road projects are for a total length of 205 kilometres on build, operate and transfer BOT basis with a concession period of 20 years.
The first road project worth Rs 650 crore is between Adloor Yellareddy and Gundla Pochampalli on the National Highway 7 passing through Nizamabad and Medak districts of Andhra Pradesh covering a distance of about 100 km. The second project is between Shivrampalli and Jadcherla on the NH-7 in Andhra Pradesh covering 70 km at a cost of Rs 450 crore. The third project worth Rs 400 crore is for expansion of the Ambala-Chandigarh corridor in the Haryana and Punjab covering a distance of 35 km
Kamadhenu group starts SS pipes
Kamadhenu Industries has launched stainless steel water pipes in Delhi recently and plans to introduce it across the country.
The company would invest Rs. 30 crore in its Ajmer unit for capacity expansion in stainless steel and water pipes production by 2007, its Chairman Mr Satish Agarwal said
China moves to open up coal industry to foreign investors
Another foreign firm has been granted cooperation with three coal mines in north China's Shanxi Province indicating China's substantial effort to open up its coal industry to foreign investors. Although the JV is yet to get official approval by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, foreign investors will no longer find policy barriers to enter the country's coal industry, said Mr Zhang Jitang, director of the Foreign Investment Department with the Shanxi Provincial Department of Commerce.
"China has eased the control over foreign investment in its coal industry," he said, acknowledging that current policies allow foreign businesses to invest in all coal sectors except those of rare coals. "China particularly inspires those foreign firms with advanced technologies to invest in such sectors as coal mine exploration and intensive processing of coal," he added.
"Due to huge profits in coal sector, the industry has not only allured domestic but also foreign investors," he said. As early as in 2000, the Asian American Coal Inc. joined hands with a Shanxi's coal producer to build China's first coal cooperative business with foreign investors and has commenced operation with an annual coal output capacity of 4 million tons. However, since then, Shanxi has not approved any other coal cooperation program with foreign investors until recently.
Shanxi is China's major coal producer. Statistics show that its proven reserves of coal amount to 272.5 billion tons, accounting for one third of the country's total. From 2000 to 2004, Shanxi's annual coal output has maintained an average growth of 30 million tons year-on-year. Last year, it coal output reached 493 million tons, a quarter of China's total. Meanwhile, the province's coal export reported 43.97 million tons in 2004, taking up 52 percent of the country's total.
Actually, overseas businesses did not just confine their attention to this Shanxi, but also showed a keen interest in other major coal provinces. In 2004, CVRD inked an agreement with Yongmei Group in central China's Henan province and Shanghai Bao Steel Group, in a bid to build a large joint-stock coal company. Companies from Australia, the Republic of Korea and Japan have also come to China to seek business opportunities in coal bases across the country
US Steel to restart idled Minntac pallet line
An iron ore pellet producing line, one of five iron ore pellet-producing lines, idled since Oct. 1 at US Steel's Minntac Mine in Mountain Iron will restart in about two weeks. Line 3 is scheduled to restart during the second week of November, spokesman Mr John Armstrong said. "We will operate based on world demand and concentrate supply," he said. "We think we have enough concentrate supply to operate it for the short term."
The line accounts for about 11 percent of the taconite plant's 15-million-ton annual capacity. It often is used as a swing line to help balance production with demand.
US Steel idled the line because of a lack of concentrated feed ore and to help match pellet inventory with customer demand. Earlier this year, concentrate from US Steel's Keewatin Taconite plant had been trucked to Minntac to help feed the line. Under the restart, concentrate from Keewatin Taconite will not be trucked to Minntac.
Chinas top shipping container maker CIMC's Q3 slides
China's China International Marine Containers Co Ltd CIMC, an arm of ports-to-roads conglomerate China Merchants Holdings and the world's top maker of shipping containers has posted a 29% dive in quarterly earnings, as rising steel costs took the edge off strong sales. It gave no reason for its first fall in profit in seven quarters but it has previously warned that high prices for the steel it uses to make containers would hurt this year.
CIMC reported net earnings of 598.61 million yuan ($74.05 million) in the quarter to September, versus 848.02 million in the same quarter of 2004. Turnover edged up 2.3 per cent to 7.64 billion yuan.
Container makers, including CIMC and closest rival Singamas Container Holdings Ltd., also face a slowdown in a global shipping boom that began in 2003, analysts have said. Freight rates have been hit by slower Chinese demand and a glut of container ships.
CIMC, which with Singamas dominates the worldwide manufacture of containers, and claims a 40% global market share said it had sold 1.15 million TEU of containers in the first nine months of the year, up 0.52% from the same period last year. The boom helped CIMC's net profit to jump by half to 2.65 billion yuan in the first three quarters of the year as turnover jumped 39%.
Anglo back to its mining roots
Anglo American's decision at last week's annual strategic review to focus on controlling mining businesses takes it back almost to the original focus, from which it was diverted by SA's turbulent political history. The group's core business has always been mining, but surplus cash and a lack of local opportunities drew it into a range of businesses, from which it has spent the past few years extricating itself.
The group was founded as a mining finance house in 1917 by Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, with funds from the UK and the US and it developed gold-mining businesses in the 1920s and 1930s, and bought into diamond giant De Beers in the 1920s. In those years Anglo also helped develop the ancillary businesses it needed for its gold mines, such as mining explosives group AECI and drilling company Boart. In the 1940s and 1950s Anglo developed the Free State goldfields, the Vaal Reefs mines and Western Areas. In the 1960s, when gold was king but SA was shunned by the international community and exchange controls shackled South African businesses, Anglo's domestic industrial and financial interests expanded. It was also in the early 1960s that Anglo made its first offshore investment with the purchase of Hudson Bay Mining & Smelting of Canada, a company it sold only last year.
Anglo American money was behind the growth of some highly successful South African non mining businesses, which have benefited from Anglo's rationalization in the past 15 years. These include South African Breweries, now SAB Miller, and its subsidiaries Distillers, Conshu, Amrel, Edgars, CNA and OK Bazaars; First National Bank; Southern Life; the former South African Associated Newspapers group, which owned the Rand Daily Mail and later became Johnnic Communications; and a huge portfolio in Anglo American Properties. Freed of Anglo's controlling hand, some of these businesses have become more trade able, have introduced new shareholders and have formed new alliances.
After 1994 Anglo's strategy changed as a result of a need to encourage black business and also because more global opportunities were opening up with the advent of SA's new democratic government. Anglo facilitated the first black empowerment transaction in the mining sector with the sale of JCI to African Mining Group and Johnnic to the National Empowerment Consortium. This was part of unbundling mining house JCI, which Anglo controlled.
Anglo retained control of Anglo Platinum (Angloplat), in which it currently holds a 74.8% stake.
In 1997 Anglo undertook a major restructuring into five businesses: De Beers (diamonds), Amcoal (coal), Amic (industrial), Amplats (platinum) and AngloGold. It subsequently dismantled Amic and bought out minority shareholders in Mondi, Amcoal and Minorco, which were formed to house the group's offshore interests.
These steps prepared the group to move its primary listing to London in 1999 to provide a better base for international expansion and to access capital markets. Today most of Anglo American's shareholders are UK institutions. But the restructuring has continued since 1999, with the buyout of minorities and delisting of De Beers in 2001 and, last year, the sale of Boart Longyear, the group's 20% stake in Gold Fields, Nkomati Nickel and the stake in Samancor Chrome. The group has also made some recent acquisitions, such as Kumba Resources and UK building materials business Tarmac. Last year it merged AngloGold with Ashanti Goldfields to create AngloGold Ashanti.
Under Anglo's new strategic plan, it will focus on diamonds, platinum, coal, base metals and iron ore.
Schnitzer Steel reports record earnings
Schnitzer Steel Industries Inc, headquartered in Portland has reported record net income of $146.9 million on revenues of $853.1 million for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2005. In comparison, net income was $111.2 million, on revenues of $688.2 million for the 2004 fiscal year.
For the fourth quarter ended Aug. 31, 2005, Schnitzer reports net income of $34.4 million on revenues of $195.7 million. In comparison, net income was $37.9 million, on revenues of $204.5 million for the last quarter of fiscal year 2004.
"Schnitzer Steel completed another strong quarter that resulted in a record year for earnings and revenues not only for the company as a whole, but also for each of our three business segments," Mr John D Carter, president and CEO, says. "We continue to see good demand for all our products and remain optimistic regarding the fundamentals underpinning our businesses."
Venezuela, Sidor open iron price negotiations
Venezuela and Siderrgica del Orinoco, the countrys largest steelmaker, opened talks on raising prices the company pay for iron ore. The talks began Thursday in Caracas, just days after President Mr Hugo Chavez threatened to renationalize the steelmaker
Sidor needs to pay fair prices for iron ore, and meet the domestic markets needs before exporting products, Mr Alvarez said. He said that Sidor is only paying 41 percent of the international price for the iron ore it uses
The government sold a 70% stake in Sidor in 1997 for $1.79 billion in cash and debt, then increased its stake to 40% in June 2003 after several debt restructurings
Kryvorizhstal trade union expects Mittal Steel to meet obligations
The statement of the Trade Union Committee reads that Mittal Steel is expected to meet its investment engagements regulated by the conditions of Kryvorizhstal re-sale. The Committee relays on mutual responsibility of the social partnership. The result of this partnership is the strict observance of the collective bargaining agreement and social guarantees for the workers, increasing salary included, reads the statement.
According to re-sale conditions, the purchaser is to state the minimum wage rate which is not less than the cost of living; to index wage in accordance with the inflation level; to keep and to improve bonus system of the workers.
During five years Mittal Steel must keep the number of personnel as it was by July 1, 2005. It also must not initiate dismissals for the first half a year. The further employment contracts must be concluded under trade conditions
Danieli new wire rod mill at Diler Demir ljk
A Danieli Morgdshammar high speed wire rod mill will be installed at the 1.2 million tonnes steel complex in Gebze, where a Danieli 6 strand high speed continuous caster successfully operates since year 2000. The new mill will have a capacity of 400,000 MT per year of quality steel wire rod, with a range covering 5.5 to 18 mm diameter plain and 6 to 16 mm diameter deformed wire rod in 2.3 MT coil weight, with provision for future extension up to 3 MT coil weight. Plant start up is scheduled for spring 2007.
The single strand wire rod mill will be fed by a 100 tonnes per hour Danieli Centro Combustion walking beam reheating furnace and will be basically made up of an 18 stand roughing & intermediate mill on SHS stands plus a 10 pass DWB finishing block for wire rod finishing rolling at production speed of 105 mps.
Provision is made for future expansion to straight bars production.
The advanced Lev 2 automation system and all electrics will be from Danieli Automation.
Steel grades are LC, MC, HC and alloy qualities for a wide range of applications including mechanical engineering, drawing, cold heading, spring, bearing and tire cord.
Mittal Steel eyes Anglo American's mining assets
As per some reports in SA dailies Mittal Steel is understood to be considering snapping up some of the mining assets put up for sale last week by Anglo American.
Last week Anglo announced that it would consider the sale of its gold, paper and packaging and industrial minerals, which includes ferrous metals that would be of interest to Mittal Steel. Analysts said the disposals could together fetch more than 6.7 billion. The proceeds are likely to be returned to shareholders in the form of a special dividend or share buyback.
Business up for supplier of pipeline repair parts in US
Hurricane damage to oil and gas pipelines has meant a rush of activity for a small northeast Ohio business that makes steel "split sleeves" for pipeline repairs. "With hurricanes Katrina and Rita we saw about 100 pipelines that were damaged," said Craig Stevens, a Department of Energy spokesman in Washington. "These are pipelines that are needed for diesel fuel, gasoline and jet fuels in areas across the country."
Mr David Fournier, VP of Pipeline Supply & Service Co. in Houston, said businesses that supply parts to build or repair pipelines generally is seeing an upswing. "Our business here has improved dramatically since the hurricanes," he said. "It's still really early in the evaluation process to see how many lines need repaired," Fournier said. "A lot of lines are being temporarily repaired to maintain flow, and they will then be repaired later in the season. The next two months are normal season to repair those lines in the Gulf, and new construction usually starts in the spring."
At Pipe Line Development, also known as PLIDCO, workers prepare the steel sleeves and test them to make sure they can hold up under high pressure. In Gulf waters, divers clamp the sleeves over damaged pipelines and bolt them together to seal leaks and keep oil and gas flowing.
Mr Joseph Smith founded the company with his wife in 1949. His early inventions, sleeves with built-in seals that bolted together around a pipeline, helped standardize the repair process. The idea was to save money by avoiding a shutdown and avoid welding an empty or partly filled line, said Mr Edward Smith, a son of the deceased founder and now president and owner.
Bangladesh government needs separate laws for foreign investments
Bangladesh Government needs to make a separate law to deal with large scale package investments like that of Indian Tata Group and Dubai based Dhabi Group, as experts say the big ventures involve various new dimensions. This necessity emerged during the negotiations with the Tata Group as the government negotiators found that the existing rules and policies do not cover such large investments coming as unsolicited offers.
Official sources said the public procurement issues are involved in the investment of Tata Group as the company has offered to sell its products, particularly electricity, to the government. But the existing rules, regulations and other policies do not support any purchase from private sector on the basis of unsolicited offer.
At present, there are some rules and policies like Public Procurement Rules (PPR) and Private Sector Power Generation Policy to deal with private-sector investment. But none of the rules does allow the government to accept any unsolicited offer in the case of public procurement. The present laws provide for open tender to procure any product for the government. "That's why the government needs a new legal instrument to deal with the investment of Tata Group," said an influential member of the government negotiation team
Even the government last year framed a new rule-Private Sector Infrastructure Guideline-to deal with private investment in infrastructure sector.
Bodies pulled from rubble in coal mines in China, Philippines
Chinese authorities say the death toll from a coal mine explosion in the country's northwest has risen to 16 as the bodies of all 16 workers who were in the Zhongxing Coal Mine at the time of the gas blast have been retrieved
In the southern Philippines, the death toll from a cave-in at a gold mine on Mindanao island has reached 12, after rescuers pulled six more bodies from the rubble. The search is continuing for seven others, who are still unaccounted for since an explosion caused the mine tunnel to collapse
Danieli to upgrade steel melt shop at Malaysia Steel Works
Malaysia Steel Works (KL) Bhd Masteel has contracted Danieli for a major upgrading of its Bukit Raja steel works, which will include the modernization and expansion of the existing EAF and Continuous caster. The AC EAF will be modified with installation of Danarc Module Technology for enhancing productivity and for reducing electrical energy and electrode consumption.
The new Danieli Modules, made up of multi role injection units supersonic oxygen lances, coal injectors and burners will provide alternative energy utilization to contribute to the EAF heat balance. The use of Modules will also result in consistent and uniform formation of high level foaming slag for arc coverage during melting and in enhanced "closed door" practice during the complete melting process.
Furthermore, the 3-strand billet continuous caster, supplied by Danieli at mid 90s, will be upgraded with installation of the 4th strand for which space was provided from the beginning. The machine produces 120 mm square billets in commercial steel grades.
