ROURKELA: The rebuilt Blast Furnace (BF)-1, Parvati, of Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) continues to remain out of production for the ninth consecutive day. Efforts to start operation failed with BF-1 getting ‘chilled’ due to failure in maintaining the high temperature of 1,200 degree C. Two days back, six of the 20 tuyers were put to use, but the BF-1 failed to produce hot metal.
Rebuilt at a cost of Rs 615 crore, the BF-1 was put to use on May 8. Union Steel Minister Chaudhary Birendra Singh had on June 11 dedicated it to the nation. However, BF-1 continues to struggle to stabilise operation. Against daily production capacity of 3,200 tonnes, BF-1 had once produced 3,100 tonnes of hot metal in a single day, while daily production varied from 1,500 tonnes to 2,500 tonnes.
‘Parvati’ is the first public sector BF of the country that was inaugurated on February 3, 1959 by then President, Dr Rajendra Prasad. It was put down on August 6, 2013, for complete rebuilding on the old foundation. Added with superior technology, the production capacity of ‘Parvati’ has increased from 0.438 MT to 1.015 MT. The RSP management said the BF1 was taken for shutdown for fixing of PCI Lances and to attend other problems.
At present, BF-1 is under the revival process and normalcy is expected to be resorted in a week. Meanwhile, the RSP claimed that all major production areas in Quarter1 (Q1) of fiscal 2018-19 have registered best ever production performance. RSP produced 9,32,235 tonnes of Hot Metal, including record output of 6,92,615 tonnes by BF-5 to record growth of 28.1 pc over the corresponding period last year.