SAIL Chairman commissions upgraded Blast Furnace at Bokaro Steel Plant

Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) Chairman Mr. C.S. Verma inaugurated the upgraded Blast Furnace-2 of Bokaro Steel Plant (BSL) today during his maiden visit to Bokaro. Blast Furnace-2, upgraded at a cost of Rs. 805 crore, is the first unit to be commissioned under BSL’s current phase of expansion & modernisation and is part of SAIL’s growth plan to take hot metal production capacity to the level of 23.5 million tonnes by 2012-13. BSL Managing Director Mr. V.K. Srivastava and SAIL Director (Technical) Mr. V.K. Gulhati were present on the occasion besides other senior SAIL officials and members of the Bokaro collective.

Upgradation of Blast Furnace-2 has increased its working volume from 1758 m3 to 2250 m3 for higher productivity level of 2 tonnes/m3/day by incorporating state-of-art technology. Other major features of the upgraded unit include a higher blast temperature of 12000C obtained from 28 tuyeres, new skip system and modern technologies for cast house & cast house fume extraction, stock house & stockhouse dust suppression, hot blast system & stoves, back draughting system, Gas Cleaning Plant, oxygen enrichment system, new electrical and automation system for all existing as well as new facilities. M/s Paul Wurth in consortium with M/s Larsen & Tubro has carried out the job of the main upgradation package and cast house defuming system package.

With upgradation, the campaign life of the furnace will increase to 16 years as compared to the present 8 years. Thus, one normal capital repair campaign costing around Rs. 60 crore and consequential production loss during the normal capital repair will be avoided.

For better environment management, stock house dust suppression system, cast house de-fuming system and Gas Cleaning Plant have been installed for pollution control.

As part of BSL’s expansion & modernisation plan, a new Cold Rolling Mill complex of 1.2 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) capacity is coming-up by December 2011 along with other auxiliary facilities. With the upgradation of Steel Melting Shop-II, the overall potential of the unit will be stepped-up to 3.35 MTPA. Facilities like Hot Metal Desulphurisation unit and an additional Ladle Furnace are coming-up for better quality of steel. Cast House Slag Granulation Plants for Blast Furnaces 1, 2 and 3 are also being established for better utilisation of the solid waste.

Congratulating the Bokaro Steel collective on the completion of this major project, SAIL Chairman Mr. Verma urged them to ensure timely completion of other modernisation & expansion projects while fully leveraging the new facilities for the progress and growth of the company.