By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, December 8, 2018: Neelachal Ispat Nigam Ltd (NINL) has commenced the production of steel billets at its Kalinganagar plant from the state-of-the-art Steel Melting Shop (SMS) on Friday, company official said.

NINL is promote by the Indian government owned MMTC and Odisha government-promoted steel public sector undertaking (PSU) MMTC with equity of 49.9 per cent is the largest stakeholder in NINL. The Odisha government is represented through two of its PSUs- Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC) and Industrial Promotion & Investment Corporation of Odisha Ltd (Ipicol) which between them hold 26 per cent stake.

NINL, the country’s biggest producer and exporter of pig iron is on the turnaround trail after the successful completion of its blast furnace capital repair work in April this year. The addition of steel billets to its varied product portfolio would help fuel the turnaround plans and inch closer to making a net profit.

NINL has just completed the blast furnace capital repair work and now it has been able to ramp up its hot metal and pig iron output significantly. Riding on the enhanced output, NINL logged Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) profit of Rs 4,000 per tonne from pig iron operations during April-August. In the corresponding period of last financial year, the company was in the Ebitda negative zone.