SAIL's Upgraded Rourkela Steel Plant Registers Record Production Growth

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Written by Richard Finlayson, Senior International Editor for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Key units in Steel Authority of India's (SAIL) (BSE:500113) (New Delhi) Rourkela Steel plant expansion program in Odisha have come online, setting record production benchmarks.

The units include a new blast furnace complex, a coke oven complex, a slab caster and an expanded raw material handling plant.

In October, the steel plant produced 233,000 tons of hot metal, 207,000 tons of crude steel and 171,000 tons of saleable steel, which represented growth of 16.4%, 10.7% and 26.7%, respectively, over October 2012.

Plant management said that on October 20, hot metal production from the new and old blast furnaces surpassed the 9,000-ton mark, indicating a fast pace of stabilization of the new blast furnace No 5.

On the first day of October, Steel Melting Shop II made 51 blows and produced 7,667 tons of crude steel, the best performance for those operations. The new Unit 3 registered record production of 6,725 tons of sinter, a record production day since its initial operations in April 2012.

Production levels at the plant in October mirrored overall performance in the first seven months of the fiscal year (April-October 2013). Hot metal production was 1.41 million tons, crude steel 1.3 million tons, and saleable steel 1.25 million tons.

For related information, see March 30, 2011, article - Construction Begins on Fifth Blast Furnace at SAIL's Rourkela Steel Mill.

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