ROURKELA:The Rourkela Steel Plant of SAIL on Thursday broke its silence on the dubious disposal of BF Granulated (BFG) slag that resulted in a financial loss of over Rs 100 crores in two years.
A statement by the RSP on the day claimed that the Blast Furnaces (BFs) of RSP generate about one lakh tonnes of BFG slag, a by-product in hot metal production, and its evacuation is of prime importance for smooth functioning of BFs amid limited storage space. It pointed out that in 2015, evacuation of huge quantity of slag had become a critical challenge and the slag conveying system of BF-V was submerged in slag as a result of which, its structure got damaged at various places. RSP had to incur extra cost to shift about five lakh tonnes of accumulated slag and keep the BF-IV and BF-V running.
RSP claimed that attempt to sell slag on e-auction route did not yield desired result and attributed it to demand and supply gap in the vicinity.
The statement read that many new blast furnaces had come up in the area, but the number of slag customers and price remained the same. To come out of the ‘precarious situation’, the RSP had to resort to open sale at listed price, which was higher than other slag producers in the region, with volume based discount for faster evacuation of slag.
The same trend continued till the last open sale in April this year. It further clarified that due to poor rail transport logistics with constraint of availability of five to six rail rakes per month, slag could not be sent to distant buyers.