Print

According to Mining News Pro -SteelMint has heard from its market sources that Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP) of Maharatna company SAIL has churned out best ever hot metal production of 16,006 tonnes in a single day after time period of two years. Last time the similar level of hot metal output (16,000 tonnes) was recorded on 28 June 2016. However, due to some technical defaults, the production level at the plant declined since Jul’16.

Over past few days the daily hot metal output at the plant reached below 7,000 tonnes, however, the management at the plant tightened their belts and worked hard to increase the plant output resulting which 16,006 tonnes of hot metal was produced on 6 Oct’18.

As per the sources, amongst the six working blast furnaces at the plant, BF no-8 also with a capacity of 8,400 tonnes which was blown in February this year churned out highest output of 6,105 tonnes. The BF No.8 is country’s one of the biggest blast furnace with an annual production capacity of 2.8 MnT and with its commissioning the plant’s hot metal capacity has been increased to 7.5 MnT.

Despite an increase in capacity, BSP was not able to achieve desired output due to shut down of other furnaces as a part of repair works. Earlier, operations at the Bhilai Steel Plant had suffered due a major accident on June 2014, when all but one of its seven furnaces had to undergo a shutdown as a precautionary measure.

However, post-accident SAIL spent INR 18,832 crore on expansion and modernisation of its Bhilai plant in Chhattisgarh till Jun’18 under which major facilities like coke oven battery, sinter machine, new blast furnace, steel melting shop etc have been installed.
In September last week, Mr. Anil Kumar Chaudhary took charge as chairman of state-owned SAIL and as per the market sources, the increase in BSP’s hot metal output is attributed to Mr. Chaudhary’s efforts.

BSP is a major producer of rails, a large variety of wide and heavy steel plates and structural steel. With an annual production capacity of 3.153 MT of saleable steel, the plant also specializes in other products such as wire rods, merchant products, earthquake-resistant grade of TMT and heavy structural including channels and beams.

SAIL has five integrated steel plants situated in Rourkela, Bhilai, Durgapur, Bokaro, and Asanol. The total hot metal production capacity of these plants is about 23.5 MnT per annum. In Q1 FY1 (Apr-Jun), SAIL has achieved hot metal production of 4.26 MnT, crude steel of 3.45 MnT and saleable steel output of 3.61 MnT.