Pak Steel seeks a Rs25 billion bailout package

KARACHI: Pakistan Steel (PS) has requested the Ministry of Industries and Production and the Ministry of Finance to arrange a bailout package of Rs25 billion to help the mill run efficiently and overcome its financial problems.

“The management of Pakistan Steel is striving hard to harness each and every source to enhance its production capacity and sales of its products at competitive prices to the international market,” said the PS in a press release on Friday. The PS said that in the last few months it has stepped up procurement of iron ore and coal which are essential for iron and steel production. “The supply line has been restored,” it said. Over the past month, the PS said, it has received two shipments of coal and one shipment of iron ore.

Another shipment of 50,000 tons of iron ore is expected to arrive in three to four days. “With this encouraging stock of iron ore and coal and putting in place of a comprehensive business plan, we expect to take production capacity to 70 to 80 per cent in two months,” said the PS. “With the business plan coupled with a bailout package in due course of time, we are confident of becoming a profitable organisation again,” it said. The PS stressed that the mill was neither being closed nor priVATised and there was no truth in such reports.