Tata Steel taps hot metal from Kalinganagar project

Project's blast furnace stated to be largest iron smelting furnace in country

After four months of commissioning its steel project at Kalinga Nagar in Odisha, Tata Steel has reached the milestone of tapping hot metal from the plant's blast furnace, stated to be largest iron smelting furnace in the country.

On November 18, 2015 when Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik dedicated Tata Steel's Kalinganagar project to the state, the steel mill's blast furnace, considered to be the heart of the project, was not ready for operation.

"We have gone for tapping of hot metal from the blast furnace on a trial basis. The iron reducing process in the blast furnace is now being tested to produce right quality of hot metal which will go into production of desired standard of steel from this plant," said an official of the Kalinganagar project.

The furnace of 4,330 cubic metres size will produce 3.2 million tonne per annum (mtpa) of hot metal per annum.

Apart from blast furnace, other key units of the plant such as sinter plant and steel melting shop were also not ready for operation at the time of commissioning of the project.

All these units are now on trial run. The hot metal tapped from the blast furnace are being casted, converted into steel and rolled to test the integrated operation of the project.

But it will take some time to synchronise the process and all units are expected to be stabilised for integrated operation by September this year, the official added.

It may be noted, the Tata Steel Kalinganagar project intends to produce three million tonne of steel in the first phase which will be ramped up to six million tonne in the next phase.

The project's Captive Power Plant (CPP), Coke Plant and Hot Strip Mill were operational earlier. While the coke unit had started production from September and the Hot Strips Mill was operating by rolling slabs procured from Tata Steel's Jamshedpur plant.

The company is procuring iron ore for the project from its Khandbandh mines in Joda.

Tata Steel has invested about Rs 25,000 crore on the Kalinganagar project till the commissioning of the first phase out of Rs 45,000 crore earmarked for six million tonne steel capacity in two phases.