Centre on Tuesday pulled up all Public Sector Units (PSU) from Steel sectors for the sudden increase in steel cost and told them to prepare a long term road map to reduce the production cost of steel. which has increased substantially in the past few months.
In view of the steep increase in steel costs during the past few months, Union Steel Minister Ram Chandra Prasad Singh had a marathon meeting with the top brass of Steel PSUs and reviewed the status of cost reduction in steel production and the future plans of steel producing units.
He asked steel players to carry out macro and microanalysis of the parameters affecting the cost of production and told PSUs to leave no stone unturned to convert the present adverse conditions into opportunities.
While asking steel PSUs to prepare a detailed action plan, the Minister said since the biggest cost element in a steel plant is coking coal, there is an urgent need to reduce the use of imported coke and increase PCI injection. Further increase in the use of pellets would reduce the consumption of coking coal and production cost, the Minister said.
The PSUs have further been directed to mention all techno-economic parameters, on Steel Dashboard, which they have used for cost reduction.
According to a senior officer of the Steel Ministry, steel cost and productivity depend upon various parameters including BF Productivity, BF Coke Rate, BF PCI/CDI rate, Labour Productivity, Specific Energy Consumption, CO2 emission intensity, and Water Consumption.