Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP), a unit of Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), has scaled new production highs in the April-December period of 2010-11.
During this period, RSP's hot metal production stood at 1.74 million tonnes (mt), crude steel output at 1.62 mt and saleable steel production at 1.49 mt. The figures represent a growth of 3.7 per cent, 3.3 per cent and 3 per cent over the production of hot metal, crude steel and saleable steel respectively over the corresponding period of 2009-10. These production centers also operated above rated capacity, registering a capacity utilization of 115 per cent, 113 per cent and 118 per cent for hot metal, crude steel and saleable steel respectively.
It may be noted that the steel plant's output of hot metal and crude steel during April-December of 2010-11 is the best ever for any April-December period of the plant since its inception.
During the April-December period, growth momentum was also maintained in the finished products of the steel plant namely plates from Plate Mill, hot rolled coils and hot rolled plates from Hot Strip Mill, electric resistance weld (ERW) pipes and spiral weld (SW) pipes from the two Pipe Plants as well as cold rolled sheets & coils from Cold Rolling Mills.
Moreover, in the value added segment like cold rolled sheets & coils, ERW pipes and SW pipes the steel plant registered impressive growth of 13.2 per cent, 43.5 per cent and 21.7 per cent compared to the corresponding period of the last financial year.
Apart from maintaining high volumes of production, RSP continued its thrust on controlling production cost through improving its techno-economics. The steel plant's achievements in the areas of coke rate per tonne of hot metal, Blast Furnace productivity as well as specific energy consumption per tonne of crude steel in the April-December period of the current fiscal are the best ever since the plant's inception, claimed a RSP release.