ROURKELA: After being rebuilt at a cost of around `615 crore, Blast Furnace (BF)-1 ‘Parvati’ of Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) of SAIL is scheduled to be dedicated to the nation by Union Steel Minister Choudhary Birendra Singh on Monday.
The BF-1 is the country’s first public sector blast furnace and combined with new and largest BF-V and old BF-IV, RSP’s daily hot metal production capacity will be enhanced to about 14,000 tonne. But concerns remain over the maximum combined consumption capacity of the old steel melting shop (SMS)-1 and modernisaed SMS-2, which is about 11,500 tonnes daily.Sources said once the operation of the rebuilt BF-1 gets fully streamlined, BF-IV would be immediately taken up for capital repair.
General secretary of BMS-affiliated Rourkela Ispat Karkhana Karmachari Sangh (RIKKS), RSP’s recognised trade union, HS Bal said it is the result of lack of vision and haphazardly executed modernisation and expansion projects worth about ` 12,000 crore. He said without installation of an LD converter and fourth caster at the SMS-2, the balance hot metal of about 2,500 tonnes per day cannot be utilised. He said RSP has the option to convert the surplus quantity of hot metal into pig iron and sell it, but the steel plant is meant to sell value-added products and not pig iron. Bal said proposals for setting up of LD converter and caster at SMS-2 have been mooted but implementation of the project is uncertain.
He said RSP has set a target of producing 4 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) hot metal and 3.85 MTPA of crude steel in 2018-19, but achieving the target seems a challenging task.
RSP Executives’ Association president Bimal Bisi said the rebuilt BF-1 after being put to use on May 8 has produced 3,200 tonnes and on an average, it is producing about 2,500 tonnes hot metal daily. He said BF-V is capable of producing about 9,000 tonnes daily and in the absence of adequate consumption, capacities of SMS-1 and 2, BF-IV are likely to be taken up for capital repair which may take up to six months. Bisi claimed that to ensure capacity utilisation of all three BFs, RSP needs to set up SMS-3 as SMS-2 lacks enough space.
Incidentally, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 1, 2015 had dedicated to the nation the modernised and expanded RSP of 4.5 MTPA capacity, a significant increase from the previous 2 MTPA. However, RSP is nowhere near reaching the 4.5 MTPA target without further capacity addition of downstream units.