Rourkela Steel Mill Achieves Record Hot-Metal Output of 2 Million Tons

India's first public sector integrated steel manufacturing unit, the Rourkela Steel Mill in Sundergarh, Orissa, registered 2 million tons of hot metal production during the 2008-09 fiscal year, a target achievement for the third consecutive fiscal year. Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, TX) reports that, for the second year running, the facility has also produced more than 2 million tons of crude steel. The mill is a part of Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) (New Delhi), the country's largest steel producer.

In 2008-09, the capacity utilization of the production unit for crude steel was 109.6 percent, while saleable steel and hot metal recorded utilizations of 119 percent and 110.3 percent, respectively. The surge in production has helped the facility witness a growth of 6.2 percent in crude steel and 4.9 percent in hot metal production in the last fiscal year.

Company sources said that this milestone was achieved as a result of focused analysis of global market and demand, capitalizing on need for special steel products, and tweaking production plans and strategies to suit the changing economic environment. Some of the special products manufactured in Rourkela include silicon steel sheets, electric resistance welded (ERW) pipes, galvanized sheets, hot-rolled plates and coils, electrolytic tin pipes and plate mill plates.

Products such as cold-rolled non-oriented steel, hot-rolled coils, plate mill plates and hot-rolled plates have also registered record production and capacity utilization of 103.9 percent, 168.4 percent, 156.8 percent, and 316 percent, respectively. The mill produced 110,604 tons of galvanized sheets, 483,835 tons of plate mill plates, 17,563 tons of electrolytic tin pipes and 45,998 tons of ERW pipes. This has resulted in production growths of 2.1 percent, 1.5 percent, 19.7 percent, and 33.4 percent, respectively, for the aforementioned products, compared with production figures in 2007-08.

Last year, in a bid to reduce production costs, the facility reduced the input of coke for the production of hot metal to 548 kilograms per ton. In 2007-08, the hot metal production cycle consumed 567 kilograms to produce one ton of hot metal. This resulted in savings of $9.6 million, which has positively impacted the company's operating profit. In its effort toward conserving water, the company also reduced consumption from 12.25 cubic meters to 5.14 cubic meters per ton of crude steel.

SAIL operates five steel manufacturing facilities ? Bokaro, Jharkhand; Rourkela, Orissa; Bhilai, Chhattisgarh; and Burnpur and Durgapur, West Bengal. The company also has three special steel units in Salem, Tamil Nadu; Durgapur, West Bengal; and Shimoga, Karnataka. The Rourkela Steel Mill, which became operational 1959, was built with assistance from Germany. The initial production capacity of the plant was 1 million tons per year, which was later augmented to 1.9 million tons per year. Presently, the facility has the capacity to produce 1.67 million tons per year of saleable steel, 2 million tons per year of hot metal and 1.9 million tons per year of crude steel. The mill is also the first in the country to use the Linz-Donawitz-Verfahren technology, also known as the basic oxygen furnace technology, for steel production.

SAIL has recorded an impressive performance despite the economic slowdown and declining demand for steel globally. In a recent communication, the company indicated that it would pay special focus to value added steel in the current financial year. The production target for 2009-10 has been set at 12 million tons for saleable steel and 3 million tons for value added steel, which will cater to the high-end user segment. SAIL has also set a sales turnover target of $8.02 billion for this year.