VISAKHAPATNAM: Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL), the corporate entity of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP), which set a new milestone in overall sales turnover in 2020-21, has created another record by achieving the best ever monthly production in March 2021. According to an RINL official tweet, till now, December 2020 was the best month since its inception with crude steel production of 4.98 lakh tonnes.
The VSP exceeded the monthly best performance in March as it achieved its best ever production of 5.37 lakh tonnes of crude steel. The RINL also achieved the best production in all shops (steel melting shop and others) in February and March 2021.
According to official figures, it achieved over 100 per cent growth in hot metal in 2021 as against the previous best of 9 per cent. It recorded hot metal production of 2.268 million tonnes in 2020-21 as against 0.853 MT in 2019-20.
Similarly, in liquid steel production, SMS2 (steel melting shop) achieved a 6 per cent growth as against the previous best of 3 per cent. The SMS 2 produced liquid steel of 2.435 MT in 2020-21 as against 2.292 MT in 2019-20. Whereas in expansion units, it maintained 11 per cent growth over the previous best.
It produced 2.340 MT in 2020-21 as against 2.106 MT in 2019-20. The RINL also achieved 80 per cent value addition in 2020-21 as against 76.5 per cent value addition in 2019-20 recording a 12 per cent growth. Its previous best was 7 per cent in value addition.
Steel Executives Federation of India joint secretary Katam Chandra Rao said the plant achieved the best ever production despite adverse conditions due to Covid-19. The RINL could produce normal production in the first and second quarters of 2020-21 fiscal despite Covid.
However, the RINL achieved the best ever production in the third and fourth quarters of the last fiscal and this reflected the commitment of RINL workforce. The RINL can achieve excellent financial results if the Central government allocates captive mines or supplies iron ore from the National Mineral Development Corporation on a long term basis at reasonable prices, he said.