Latha: Before I come to the minimum import price (MIP) impact, for the month of August we got this big number from the core sector that steel output has grown by 17 percent. Has demand really picked up for steel on the ground? A: It is true that the steel output during the month of August has gone up because lot of secondary units which were lying closed they have come into action. However, the demand is still to improve at a matching rate. During the first six months of this year the demand grew just by a 0.50 percent. However, of course then you can attribute to the fact that we had a monsoon period during the first half. Now the monsoons are virtually getting over and we are getting the start of the second half of the year which normally has more business activity picking up. We believe that during this year the demand on the whole will grow by 4-5 percent. Reema: Just yesterday you made an announcement about divestment of a 24 megawatt wind power business which is located in Maharashtra. Could you give us some more details what is the amount that you will raise from this? A: I am not in position to give you the amount. We have got fairly decent offer on this one; on the basis of which we have concluded the agreement with the IDFC. We are basically in the process as I have spoken earlier to you on your channel in the process of consolidating our assets. We are going to be very deeply focused on what is our core business which is mines and minerals; it is power and thermal sector and it is steel. So, therefore anything which are part of the asset but not core, we would be divesting that. The consolidation is going on, it is in progress, so earlier we had divested one asset now this is another one and the effort we will continue. Nigel: For the last few years you have been talking about your pellet plants. You had put up a good capacity, but demand wasn’t really coming in. However, I am just seeing in the last six months demand has picked up, prices well have picked up, the export market particularly I think pellet prices have moved up substantially 20-30 percent. Why is this happening could you give us some details on that? A: You are right in saying that the pellet demand especially the export demand has picked up during the last two to three months. The price it used to be in the range of USD 62-65 CFR are now in the range of about USD 84-86 CFR. So, there is an improvement of about 35-40 percent prices. That is because there is a lot of demand from China and a couple of other countries in Middle-East and Africa, so that has seen a spurt in prices. In China the government is discouraging use of sinter. They think the sintering plants are polluting, so therefore there is a clear trend to go more towards pellets and lumps. We in JSPL we are the second largest producer pellets in the country. We export almost like 50 percent of our output to the export market wherever the prices are appropriate. Nigel: What is your current capacity utilisation in terms of your pellet plants? I remember it was very low of late so your total capacity, what is your capacity utilisation? Could you give us those details? A: The capacity is 9 million tonne. We are now producing at a rate of about 85 percent of the total capacity.
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