KalingaTimes Correspondent
Bhubaneswar, April 9: Indian Metals & Ferro Alloys Ltd (IMFA), India's largest producer of ferro alloys, has recorded a 31 percent increase in ferro chrome output for the year 2007-08 at 169,947 tonnes as against 129,848 tonnes in the previous year.

This is an all time record and coincides with a bullish outlook for the alloy on the back of strong demand, according to the company.

"This was the outcome of a concerted strategy to increase ferro chrome output as a result of which ferro silicon production declined to 16,104 tonnes (previous year: 30,624 tonnes)," the company said on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, chrome ore output mined entirely for captive use increased by nearly 30 percent to 418,524 tonnes (previous year: 323,183 tonnes) while power generation during FY 2008 stood at 785 million units.

IMFA, which has won several national export awards for its outstanding performance, also exported a record 116,357 tonnes of value added ferro chrome during FY 2008 which was an increase of 27 percent higher over the previous year's 91,554 tonnes.

Commenting on the company's operational performance Subhrakant Panda, Managing Director, said: "We have strived hard during the recently concluded financial year to capitalise on our unique strength of being India 's only fully integrated producer of value added ferro chrome. The record output coincides with a bullish outlook for the alloy on the back of strong demand from the stainless steel industry."