Best ever annual output by RSP

Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP), a unit of Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL,) has achieved record production in key areas last fiscal.

The steel plant produced 2,365,824 tonnes of hot metal registering a growth of 2.5% over the corresponding period last year.

Similarly by making 2,207,282 tonnes of crude steel and 2,144,344 tonnes of saleable steel, RSP recorded improvement of 1.7% and 3.09%, respectively, over its production in the corresponding period last year.

RSP also realised more than 100% capacity utilisation in all the three key production areas like hot metal (118.6%), crude steel (116.2%) and saleable steel (128.3%), company sources said today.

The coke ovens registered their best ever performance for any year with average of 361.3 oven pushings per day. By producing 3,616,593 tonnes of sinter, the plant not only registered a growth of 4.8% but also clocked its best ever performance. Production of HR coils was also an all-time best of 1,675,821 tonnes with a growth of 4.7% over previous year.

Production of spiral welded pipes went up by 25.3%, CR sheets and coils by 2.2% and cold rolled non-oriented sheets and coils by 15.55%.

Best ever techno-economic parameters were also clocked with a coke rate of 525 kg of coke per tonne of hot metal, coal to hot metal ratio of 0.956, blast furnace productivity of 1.497 tonnes per cubic metre per day and specific energy consumption of 6.74 giga calories per tonne of crude steel.

In the last fiscal RSP made significant progress in projects implementation, the sources said.

Commissioning of new sinter complex and the raw material circuit of ore bedding and blending plant Phase-II were two important steps.

Besides, the hot blast stove heat-up activities with pilot burner and the hot trial of the new pig casting machine (PCM) of blast furnace 5 were also taken into operation.

The cold trial of testing the new Coke Ovens Battery-6 along with new coal handling plant, coke dry cooling plant and new coal chemicals department is in progress. Coal pushing in coke oven battery-6 will start in few days.

In a message to the plant collective, RSP CEO G S Prasad said: "We must remember that we have a commitment to our stakeholders to make our plant a model steel plant in every sense of the term that others will want to emulate.

"As we set foot on a new financial year, let us resolve that we shall produce accident free steel, individually and collectively work towards commissioning and quick stabilisation of the new units at the earliest."