Tata Metaliks has temporarily shut its blast furnaces and its associated facilities at Kharagpur, West Bengal for repair and maintenance works including hearth profiling from Sep 19, according to a company release. The facilities are expected to resume work in the second half of October.
Pig iron supplies in Central India are expected to tighten following the temporary shut down of Tata Metaliks’ plant, said traders. Offers for pig iron on Monday were at Rs28,000/mt ($381.99/mt) delivered Raipur and Rs27,500/mt ($375.17/mt) delivered Raigarh.
Recently, Steel Authority of India Limited (Sail) conducted an auction of pig iron from its Bhilai unit with bids at Rs27,400/mt ($373.8/mt) ex-works. Davis learnt Sail refused the bids and cancelled the auction as the company believes it could achieve better prices in the next few days.
Tata Metaliks is a subsidiary of Tata Steel. The plant at Kharagpur produces 550,000mt of hot metal, of which 200,000mt is converted into DI pipes and the rest into pig iron.
($1=Rs73.32)