http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/2009/06/08/69119.html
Largest billet making plant set up in Ctg
Jasim Uddin Haroon
A local rod manufacturing company said Sunday that it had set up the country’s largest billet making plant at a cost of Tk 2.7 billion, which will almost halve the annual import of the raw material for steel products.
BSRM, the steel market leader, has installed its plant in Chittagong on a 3.0 acre land and it will roll out at least 150,000 tonnes of billet each year, the company sources said.
“We will start trial operation shortly. Definitely, our commercial operation will kick off at the end of this year,” Ameir Alihussian, a director of the BSRM told the FE.
The new plant of BSRM has been named BISCO (BSRM Iron and Steel Company).
The produces will be mainly consumed by different re-rolling mills of BSRM, company officials said.
Leading re-rolling mills manufacture rods from imported billets, a semi finished steel product, to produce quality 60-grade steel products and Bangladesh’s annual import volume varies between 350,000 and 375,000 tonnes.
Smaller re-rolling mills manufacture steel billet by smelting iron wastes or ship scraps for producing plates and mild steel rods.
Mr Ameir said they undertook to set up the new billet making plant mainly as the country’s demand for quality rod is rising and added: “Quality billet is the pre-condition for producing quality rods.”
Steel manufacturers said the demand for 60-grade rod was rising on an average 10 per cent annually and mainly being consumed by the real estate developers.
Steel producers said prices of quality rods depend on the international prices of billets. Self-sufficiency in billet making will help stabilise its prices in the local market, they added.
BSRM said it would purchase 30 MW power from the Power Development Board to run the plant.
Around 250 re-rolling and steel mills in the country produce around 2.5 million tonnes of steel products, which meet the annual local demand.
