Although Bokaro Steel's press release only said that the plant started earning profits from January, sources in the plant, one of the largest in the country with a turnover of over Rs 5,500 crore, said it would post a net profit of at least Rs 50 crore for the last quarter of 1999-2000.

Considering the fact that the plant's fortunes are looking up on all fronts - production, sales, market realisations, cost control, profitability and exports - it will make a substantial profit in 2000-2001, the sources believe.

Bokaro Steel completed 1999-2000 with a 28 per cent growth in saleable steel as production increased to 3.2 million tonne (mt) from 2.5mt in 1998-99. It has set a target of increasing saleable steel production by 7.19 per cent to 3.43mt in 2000-2001.

Bokaro Steel, the largest producer of hot rolled (HR) coils in the country, registered a growth of 26.5 per cent in HR coil production to 2.89mt from 2.28mt in 1998-99.

With a distinct improvement in the quality of HR coils after modernisation, Bokaro Steel exported 272,829 tonnes in 1999-2000, a growth of 60 per cent.

SAIL increased the prices of flat products in a span of three months following the firming up of prices in the domestic and international markets. Despite that, major customers of SAIL had booked substantial volume of flat products, a SAIL official claimed.

For the past three years, Bokaro Steel has been laying stress on introduction of value added products. Production of such items went up from 96,500 tonnes in 1997-98 to 207,000 tonnes in 1998-99 and further to 464,000 tonnes in 1999-2000. Its target for 2000-01 is 878,000 tonnes.

The specifications of these value added products are set according to customers' demands. The commercial production of corrosion resistant SAILCOR steel at Bokaro has helped SAIL in meeting the orders from the Indian Railways.

The plant is making efforts at cost reduction through improvements in techno-economic parameters. It has been able to reduce the consumption of coke in blast furnaces from 562 kg per tonne of hot metal produced to 548kg which is comparable to international standards. Gross energy consumption, which accounts for around a third of the operational expenses, has been reduced from 8.498 giga calories per tonne of crude steel to 8.243 giga calories. Sales revenue of Bokaro Steel generated from coal chemicals also went up from Rs 45.96 crore in 1995-96 to Rs 66.11 crore in 1999-2000.