International Operations

NatSteel Asia

Overview

NatSteel Asia Pte. Ltd. (NSA) is a leading long-product player in the Asia Pacific region with operations and joint ventures in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, China, Australia, Philippines and Vietnam. Its Singapore based operations serves as a hub for the NSA group providing engineering, logistics, sourcing information technology and other support services.

The Group is growing its downstream business in strategic markets such as Singapore and Australia by reducing wastages, increasing productivity and ensuring consistent quality.

Infrastructure

NSA Singapore has upstream facilities for billet-making, rolling mills for bars and wire rods as well as downstream production including cut-and-bend, bore pile, precage and welded mesh. In Xiamen, China, the Group has rolling operations, while in Australia manufacturing activities are focused on downstream production (cut & bend, mesh). In Thailand and China, the Group has manufacturing facilities for wire drawing.

Products

The Group produces construction grade steel which includes rebars, cut-and-bend, mesh, precage, bore pile, PC wire & PC strand.

People

Numerous awards received by NSA attest to the group’s commitment to people development and employee welfare.
These include:

• The People Developer Standard recognising organisations committed to bringing out the best in their people.
• The Work-Life Excellence Award conferred by the Singapore Ministry of Manpower.
• The Singapore Health Award (Gold) in recognition of commendable workplace health promotion.

Operational Highlights

NSA increased its stake in the following companies during the year:

• NatSteel (Xiamen) Limited, China, from 50% to 100%,
• NatSteel Trade International Pte. Ltd., Singapore, from 60% to 100%, and NatSteel Vina Co. Limited, Vietnam, from 33.9% to 56.5%.
• In China, a new PC Strand line was commissioned in Wuxi Jinyang Metal Products Co.
• NSA launched the Total Operational Performance (TOP) programme to achieve cost-reduction targets through the implementation of ideas for improvement.
• The Tata Business Excellence Model (TBEM) was also launched to enhance focus on business excellence.

Production Highlights

Various improvement initiatives resulted in record high billet production and rolling achieved record high outputs in 2006-07.

Production output (000’ mt)

	2006-07	2005-06
NSA Group (including JVs)	1540	1311
NSA Group (including JVs)	1077	855

In Singapore, billet production increased by 9% (2006-07: 633k; 2005-06: 584k) and rolling mill production went up by 21% (2006-07: 667k; 2005-06: 550k).

During the year NSA invested in a new sidewall oxygen lance and carbon injection system for the electric arc furnace in Singapore. This has significantly reduced electricity consumption by 10%. Production and sales of downstream products have increased across all products. Mesh and precage increased significantly by 35% and 31%, respectively.

TOP