ISLAMABAD, June 26: The management of the Pakistan Steel Mills has sought the permission of the federal government to urgently revamp the mills with enlisting its 10 per cent shares on the stock market.
Informed sources told Dawn on Monday that after the verdict of the Supreme Court against the privatisation, the “biggest challenge” before the management of the Mills was to restore some of the aging plants on fast track basis.
The process of revamping, sources said, remained held up due to the government’s decision to privatise the Mills on May 29 this year. The mills was currently running on average 60 per cent capacity against 90 per cent owing to delay in undertaking what was termed “certain urgent repair work”.
Sources said it would take six to nine months to once again plan the privatisation of the Mills after the clearance by the Council of Common Interests (CCI), now being revived, and also by the approval of the Cabinet Committee on Privatisation (CCOP).
The management has informed the authorities that the Mills has with it Rs10 billion equity which could be spent on carrying out the necessary revamping in a shortest possible time.
The revamping and the expansion of the mills from one million tons to 1.5 million tons, sources said, was earlier decided by the government. “But today we cannot avoid this critical revamping in order to save the mills from further decadence,” a source said.
Sources said that the management has informed the higher authorities that major revamping work involved the restoration of coke oven batteries plant so as to expand its life for another 3- 4 years. It was said that the permanent solution was to replace the cook oven batteries. Earlier, these batteries, were partially rehabilitated by importing coke from abroad.
