In this issue

The Malaysian Wave

The World Steel Association (WSA) has collated crude steel production data for 65 countries at over 132 million tonnes in August 2015, almost 3% less than August 2014. China’s crude steel production was down 3.5% at 67 mnt while Japan has reported 8.8 mnt production, almost 6% decrease over Aug’14 figures. India is one of the only large steel producing nations which reported a growth in crude steel production of more than 8% at ~7.7 mnt compared to 7 mnt in Aug’14. These figures are indications of eased out raw material situation in India and government’s pragmatic efforts to promote the industry and its ‘Make in India’ campaign.

The Government’s push for higher industrial production will be long lived if at the same time there is strong thrust to secure fresh and recurring domestic demand for the produce.

The Indian manganese alloys industry is trapped in one such situation where almost half of the production caters to the export market and because of rising power cost in the last couple of years and rising dependence on imported ore, the Indian product is struggling to compete in the global market. This was seen as an opportunity by the South African & Australian Mn ore miners who have chosen Malaysia to process their ore cheaply into Mn alloys and cater to a large South East Asian market. The power cost in Malaysia is half of the present tariffs in India. The newly nominated committee of Indian Ferro Alloys Producers Association (IFAPA) has a lot of ground to cover while they defend an antidumping investigation by EU presently on and also prepare a shelter for a likely oversupply situation at current capacity utilization levels because of Malaysian production.

We caught up with Mr DB Sundara Ramam, Chairman of IFAPA and Executive In charge, Ferro Alloys & Minerals, Tata Steel and Mr Manish Sarda, Vice-Chairman, IFAPA and Director International Business of SEML. Read more on page 24. 

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