Tata Steel starts work on next blast furnace

Tata Steel today set the ball rolling for 10 million ton capacity at Jamshedpur Works with the ground breaking ceremony of the "I" blast furnace.

The ground breaking was done by B Muthuraman, managing director, Taat Steel and maked the company's progress in increasing capacity to 10 million tons which is a part of the brownfield expansion estimated to cost Rs 14,000 crore. The furnace was expected to get commissioned by November 2010. At present the capacity at Jamshedpur is 6.8 million tons.

The planned production of the "I" blast furnace is 3.05 million tons of hot metal and will produce about 29 per cent of the total hot metal of 10.55 million tons. The "I" blast furnace would be designed, supplied, erected and commissioned by the consortium consisting PW Italia, L&T and PW India.

Speaking on the occasion, B Muthuraman said, this was a project about productivity and a project aimed at making Jamshedpur, the best steel producing site. As a part of the brownfield expansion, Tata Steel had already commissioned its "H" blast furnace six months ago in May 2008, which took the capacity to 6.8 million tons.