Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP), owned by Indian state-owned steelmaker Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), will push ahead with the capacity expansion at its universal rail mill (URM), despite SAIL losing its status as a monopoly supplier to Indian government-owned and -operated Indian Railways, a BSP official said on Wednesday, May 17.
The capacity of the URM which went into production in January this year will be expanded from 1.2 million mt per year to 2 million mt per year, the official said.
According to the SAIL official, even though Indian Railways has opened up rail procurement from private steel companies, the ability of BSP mill to produce 130 meter and 260 meter single rails would ensure sufficient demand for the expanded URM.
Until recently, BSP had been the sole supplier of rail to Indian Railways, which on an average procured an estimated $700 million per year of rail for upgrading of railways and for the laying of new railways lines.
However, last month Indian Railways floated a global tender for procurement of 250,000 mt of rails over the next four months, thereby ending a near 30-year monopoly of SAIL in supplying rails to the national carrier.