KARACHI: Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) received 110,000 tonnes of metallurgical coal from Australia on Friday which is likely to increase its current month’s production capacity to 20 per cent.

The coal arrived in two ships, Mega Ocean and Mega Lohori, both carrying 55,000 tonnes each. Unloading from the ships, which anchored at Steel Jetty in Bin Qasim Port and Outer Anchorage of Port Qasim respectively, has been started.

A spokesperson for the PSM said this was the first shipment of metallurgical coal the mill bought from the Rs4.2-billion tranche it received under the government’s restructuring package of Rs18.5bn. Under the package, the PSM is to achieve 77pc capacity by January 2015.

Another letter of credit (LC) for 50,000 tonnes of iron ore would be opened on July 7, the spokesman said.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2014