State—owned steel maker SAIL will increase its annual production capacity in a phased manner, taking it to 26 million tonnes by 2014. At present, the company produces about 13.82 million tonnes of hot metal every year.
In the first phase of expansion, by the end of 2012, it will be taken up to 23.46 mtpa and in the second phase it will be increased further to 26.18 mtpa. The second phase of expansion programme is likely to cost the steel maker about Rs 10,000 crore.
At present, SAIL is undertaking a Rs 70,000 crore expansion programme to raise its annual production capacity to about 23 million tonnes by 2012 from around 13 million tonnes. The PSU had earlier envisaged to double its annual production capacity to 26 million tonnes by 2012, but later revised the target downwards to 23 million tonnes due to global economic slowdown. It had, however, said that the remaining capacity would be added in the second phase of the expansion project.crackcrack
