Bhubaneswar, Mar 15: Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP), a unit of Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL), is all set to establish new records in its performance during 2007-08.

Official sources said here that the steel plant completed a sterling performance during February 2008 and also set up all-time best performance for the period April 2007 to February 2008 as compared to any corresponding period since its inception.

RSP had commenced the financial year 2007-08 with the strategy of maximising its volume of production by operating at over 100 per cent of annual rated capacity to bring down production costs for maximising its profitability.

In line with this strategy the steel plant created history by surpassing its annual rated capacity in hot metal (2.0 MT), crude steel (1.9 MT) and total saleable steel (1.671 MT) during the first eleven months of the fiscal itself, doing so for the first time since inception.

The month of February witnessed production of 2,84,085 tonnes of sinter, 1,86,720 tonnes of hot metal, 1,79,217 tonnes of crude steel and 1,71,584 tonnes of total saleable steel that represented more than 100 per cent fulfillment of the annual performance plan.

Simultaneously, these figures correspond to phenomenal growth of nearly 27 per cent in sinter, 13 per cent in hot metal, 13.5 per cent in crude steel and 15.8 per cent in total saleable steel compared to February 2007.

The dispatch of steel during the month at 1,75,537 tonnes also corresponds to a growth of 18 per cent compared to February 2007, the sources said.