ICICI Pru Infra Buys SAIL, RIL, Voltas; Sells NTPC

ICICI Pru Infrastructure Fund has made huge buying and selling in the month of March. The scheme increased its weightage to oil and telecom stocks while reduced in power, banking, engineering, cement and auto sectors. The weightage to oil and gas sector has increased by 6.4% as the scheme has made fresh buying of 13.73 lakh shares of Reliance, which has corrected nearly 35% from its 52-week high and 0.75 lakh shares of Aban Offshore. RIL has hit a low of Rs 2120 in the month of March and is the top holding counter in the scheme. However, it has sold 12.4 lakh shares of Cairn India and 3.5 lakh shares of HPCL, and exited ONGC.

Mega Expansions In Pipeline For SAIL

India''s largest steel maker SAIL has some mega expansion plans - both organic and inorganic and not surprisingly both the Centre and State are all out to provide the much needed support. Metal stocks may have escaped the onslaught in the stock markets but that is only one indicator why managements continue to feel bullish on the fundamentals of their companies. Steel Authority of India is now in an investment mode.

Ramvilas Paswan had earlier informed that the Chattisgarh government has allotted the Raoghat Mines for SAIL and by the time SAIL''s expansion would be completed, all the environmental clearances will also be in place. Raoghat mines in Chattisgarh has reserves of 500 MT and this will fulfill SAIL''s Bhilai plant requirement for next 30 years.

But SAIL also wants to expand inorganically and what will help it to do this better is the clarity emerging on merger of Nilanchal Ispat Nigam with itself and consolidation of Bharat Refractory and Maharashtra Elektro Smelt. BRL would address refractory requirement and MEL would provide ferro-manganese requirement of SAIL.NIL would help expand steelmaking capacity by another 1 MT.

L&T Bags Rs 1,107-Cr Orders From SAIL

Larsen & Toubro Ltd (L&T) has bagged orders worth Rs 1,107 crore from Steel Authority of India Ltd for the turnkey construction of coal and coke handling plant and base mix preparation plant at IISCO Steel Plant, Burnpur, in West Bengal. The scope of work for this order include basic and detail engineering, supply and erection of mechanical, electrical and instrumentation works and other civil and structural works. This turnkey project is to be completed in 26 months.

RINL Inks Mou With SAIL For Lime Stone

Visakhapatnam: The Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (the Vizag steel plant) and the Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) have inked a memorandum of understanding here on Jan 29, for acquisition of high-grade lime stone in Oman. Both will be 50:50 associates in the venture. Lime stone is utilized as flux material to remove impurities in steel-making. Currently, the RINL is importing 3.5 lakh tonnes of high-grade lime stone annually.