BSRM Iron and Steel Co Limited (Bisco), the newly established concern of BSRM Group, has started constructing a billet factory at a cost of Tk 277 crore, in a bid to supply raw material to its steel manufacturing plant.
The group claims that the factory would be the largest billet manufacturing plant in the country.
BSRM Steels Ltd (BSL), another concern of BSRM Group, will use the billet produced in the new factory as raw materials for manufacturing 500-grade steel rods. BSL is the country's only manufacturer of 500-grade steel rod.
"The entire annual production of the factory, which is 1.52 lakh tonnes, could easily be used by BSL," said Aameir Alihussain, director of BSRM Group.
"Since BSL has huge demand for billets, there will still be a supply shortage even after we have consumed the total production of Bisco," he said.
BSL's annual demand for billets is 4 lakh tonnes.
Bisco is constructing the billet factory on a 2.7-acre plot, located near Meghna Engineering Works, the group's lone billet factory in Chittagong, the company officials said. The factory is set to go into production in one year.
"The volatile steel prices on the international market demand that domestic investments should be undertaken for manufacturing billet in the country," BSRM Group said in a statement.
Costs of locally manufactured billet would be around Tk 8,500 cheaper than the imported billet, company officials said.
In a bid to arrange funds for the factory, the company has recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Industrial and Infrastructure Development Finance Company Limited to get a syndicated loan financing of around Tk 193 crore.
The sector people said there are around 10 billet factories in the country.

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