Experts pin hope on Chinese steel tech

Steel experts feel that fullest use should be made of Chinese technical expertise to meet the national targets for expansion of steelmaking capacity in the country.

This view was expressed by Indian technical experts who attended a two-day international technical meet of Sino-Indian steel equipment manufacturers and suppliers in Ranchi.

Speakers at the meet highlighted the Chinese steel making technical expertise relevant to Third World conditions.

The speakers said the know-how could be used to meet the challenge of achieving a national production level of 200 million tons of steel per annum by the year 2020.

Over 200 delegates from China, India and other countries representing about 50 organizations involved in the global steel trade attended the event.

The meet was organized by the Ranchi chapter of the Indian Institute of Metals.

One of the participants, A S Mathur, executive director of the Centre for Engineering and Technology (CET) of Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) expressed the opinion that Chinese companies had possessed a huge manufacturing and supply base and could be the India's apt partners in the growth of Indian steel.

Mathur said Chinese companies had already started participating in the expansion projects of Indian steel companies, but the scale of participation could be increased to cover more areas.

Inaugurating the meet, V K Gulati, director (technical) of SAIL, said that steel companies in India had taken up massive capacity addition projects.

Nationally, expansion on Indian steel making capacity to 200 million ton (mnt) by 2020 from the existing level of 53mnt had encouraged many steel units to add capacity despite problems like inadequate supply and rising cost of iron ore.

In order to achieve the target there should be cooperation between all steel companies and steel plant equipment manufacturers and suppliers.

The former managing director of Durgapur Steel Plant of SAIL, Dr S K Bhattacharya, in his key note address, that a major concern facing the steel companies today was that there were not enough equipment manufacturers, or suppliers and engineering procurement and construction (EPC) contractors who could meet the strict deadlines that had been set.

Bhattacharya said, "Inadequate availability of EPC contractors has been a major constraint over the last few years. The possibility of local contractors collaborating with companies abroad needs to be explored to address the problem."

He said there had been no major capacity addition in the equipment manufacturing sector in recent years as the steel industry was passing through a period that could be described as "hibernation".

In Europe and USA capacity addition in steel making mostly took place in the 1960's and 1970's.

In recent times, capacity expansion in steel making had taken place mainly in China.

It could be argued that equipment manufacturers in the West were really not prepared to meet the sudden spurt in demand from Asia.

Thus equipment supply in time was a matter of serious concern.

The former SAIL director said it had been seen that a few multinational companies dominated the basic equipment manufacturing sector.

Indigenous manufacturing companies to a great extent operated as fabricators or auxiliary equipment suppliers.

For many equipment or component manufacturing companies, the core steel making process had no direct relationship as they were required to fabricate the item according to the drawings given to them.

For the future, technology, particularly design and development capability, needed to be developed by most of the Indian equipment manufacturers, he added.

Indian companies had to bridge the gap between drawing and design.

Till this was achieved, the dependence on foreign companies would continue.