A steel ladle is a container for transferring molten steel.
Till 2007-08, the ladle life used to be around 40 heats. After the introduction of full mag-carbon lining, the ladle life improved up to 50 heats in 2008-09, RSP sources said today.
Since then, many improvements have been implemented in the areas of operation and refractory practice, which has resulted in achieving an average life of 80 heats and a record life of 100 heats at present, they said.
Improvement in ladle life from 50 to 100 heats has resulted in slashing specific consumption of refractories in SMS-I Ladles from 12.99 Kg per tonne of crude steel in 2007-08 to the present level of 8.56 Kg per tonne of crude steel.
Accordingly specific cost has come down from Rs 263.73 per tonne of crude steel to Rs 243.90 per tonne of crude steel in spite of substantial increase in the price of refractories. On an average, following this improvement, RSP can save around Rs 7.2 lakh per month, they said.
