Tata Steel Ltd.

Tata Steel Ltd said yesterday that stronger demand in the current quarter would drive its expected 20 percent increase in Indian steel sales volumes and 7 to 8 percent growth in European sales volumes. 
 
Tata, the world's eighth largest steel maker, operates plants in Europe with capacity of 20 million tonnes, India with 6.8 million tonnes and Southeast Asia with about 3.5 million tonnes of annual output. Last month, it reported lower consolidated sales in its fiscal third quarter ending in December, because of steel price comparisons that were well below a year ago. 
 
In India, steel demand is expected to be higher by nearly 9 or 10 percent this year (2009/10) than for 2008/09. Most of Tata's increased sales will come from 1 million tonnes of new capacity added at its Jamshedpur facility in India, available during the current year. By the middle of next year, Jamshedpur's capacity will grow to 10 million tonnes.
 
Tata sells domestically about 85 to 90 percent of the steel it manufactures in India, exporting about 10 to 12 percent mostly to neighbouring countries like Bangladesh and Nepal. Though European steel demand has been stagnant or growing extremely slowly capacity utilization has gone up quarter to quarter, because of improvement in demand.