Tata Steel wants to tap export market for Kalingangar facility products

The company has exported 80,000 tonne of hot rolled coils manufactured at Kalingangar facility

Tata Steel is looking to tap the export markets to ship value-added, innovative products made at its greenfield steel mill at Kalinganagar, the steel hub in Odisha.

The steel company has already shipped overseas, 80,000 tonne of hot rolled (HR) coils manufactured at the Kalingangar facility.

“We have started exports of HR coils from Tata Steel Kalinganagar and have exported about 80000 tonne by March 2017. The details of the target for the next fiscal are being worked out. Similarly, we have started exports of Tata Ferro-shots from Tata Steel, Kalinganagar. It is a new and innovative product from Tata Steel”, said Rajiv Kumar, vice president (operations) of Tata Steel's Kalinganagar project.

Tata Ferro-shots is granulated pig iron solidified by cooling in water. The product finds applications in electric arc furnaces, induction furnaces, cupolas, basic oxygen furnaces and foundries as a replacement of pig iron, scrap or DRI. Its inherent properties lead to better yield, higher productivity and lower energy cost. Moreover, the production process is environment-friendly and safe.

As a product, Tata Ferro-shots been well-accepted both in the domestic and international markets. The product has received interests from Far-East, South-East and Middle-East Asia, Europe and the US. The steel maker has also made supplies to some of those destinations.

Tata Steel has achieved two million tonne of hot metal production at its Kalinganagar blast furnace. The company's ramp-up to three million is on schedule. It is committed to further expansion and there is a proposal to increase the capacity of the plant from three million tonne per annum (mtpa) to eight mtpa in the second phase.

“The details of the second phase expansion are being chalked out and the proposal will be submitted to the board for consideration. There is no hurdle at the ground level for expansion and details of the required investment are being chalked out”, said Kumar.

Tata Steel intends to make Kalinganagar a world class benchmark as far as productivity of manpower is concerned. Deployment of state-of-the-art technology and innovations would contribute to this endeavour.

As one of the options for raw material security for Kalinganagar, Tata Steel has struck a deal to acquire 100 per cent equity in Brahmani River Pellets Ltd (BRPL) at an enterprise value of Rs 900 crore. BRPL owns a four mtpa pellet plant at Jajpur in Odisha and another 4.7 mtpa iron ore beneficiation plant at Barbil- both are connected through a 220 km underground slurry pipeline. The acquisition of BRPL is expected to reduce cost of blast furnace operations and enhance the operational efficiency of the Kalinganagar project.

“This (the BRPL acquisition) is being explored as one of the options for securing raw-material for our plant. Other options are also being pursued simultaneously”, Kumar said.