SAIL operationalises new facilities at Rourkela mill

State-run steel-maker SAIL today operationalised new facilities at its Rourkela blast furnace, the largest in the country, to boost hot metal production.
"Chairman SAIL C S Verma who is on a visit to the plant witnessed the operationalisation of new Coal Dust Injection (CDI) and Power Blowing Station (PBS) facilities today," the company said in a statement.
These units will boost the productivity of hot metal and techno economics in largest Blast Furnace in the country at SAIL Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) set up at a cost of Rs 1,600 core, which was made operational in August 2013, it said.

"The CDI facility takes us one step ahead in augmenting efficiency and raw material optimisation by facilitating direct consumption of coal and reducing coke rate," Verma said on the occasion.
With the latest CDI facility coming on stream, 11 out of 21 furnaces of SAIL will now be CDI-equipped. In the coming months, CDI will also be installed in RSP's existing Blast Furnace 4, at a cost of Rs 71 crore.
Under the new CDI system, the rate of injection will be 150 kg per tonne of Hot Metal and the feeding rate will be 50 tonne per hour.
The major components of the CDI system are two raw Coal silos of 500 tonne capacity each and fine coal silo of storage capacity of 2400 metre cube.