Search the Internet          Tips  Sites: Finance, Investment

Tisco to cut back cold rolled production

India's largest private sector steel-maker Tata Iron and Steel Company said on Wednesday it had cut cold rolled steel production to 70,000 tonnes per month in the July-September quarter due to poor demand.

In March, it produced 100,000 tonnes, and this has been decreasing through the April-June quarter, said Jamshed Irani, the firm's outgoing managing director.

"The market for cold rolled products has not grown," he said.

"But we will make more hot rolled products so that overall production is the same as before," said B Muthuraman, who takes over as managing director next week.

Both were speaking at a news conference called to announce that US consultancy World Steel Dynamics had ranked Tisco the world's top steel maker.

In early June, the company had said its target was to produce one million tonnes of cold rolled products in 2001-02 (April-March) out of a total target of 3.5 million tonnes for all steel products.

Cold rolled products are made out of hot rolled coils, and have a higher degree of value addition.

Tisco shares closed up 1.36 per cent at Rs 100.60 on the Bombay Stock Exchange on Wednesday, while the benchmark index was down 1.23 percent, ahead of an announcement of the company's results for the quarter ended June.

A Reuters poll of 12 brokerages released last week predicted Tisco would record a median 7.7 per cent year-on-year rise in net profit to Rs 1.09 billion ($23.14 million) on sales that fell 6.22 per cent to Rs 16.21 billion.

Tell us what you think of this report