As part of its Rs 70,000 crore expansion programme, state-owned Steel Authority of India (SAIL) today commissioned a newly renovated unit at its Bokaro Steel Plant (BSL).
SAIL Chairman C S Verma inaugurated the revamped blast furnace at BSL, which was upgraded at a cost of Rs 805 crore, a company statement said.
"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 and 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 (from present 14 MT)," it said.
A blast furnace is central to steel-making and is a furnace in which combustion is intensified by a blast of air through a hot mixture of ore, coke, etc, to smelt iron.
The renovation will result in higher productivity levels, the company said, adding that the upgradation was done by Luxembourg-headquartered engineering company Paul Wurth in consortium with infrastructure major Larsen & Toubro.
"With upgradation, the campaign life of the furnace will increase to 16 years, as compared to the present eight years. Thus, one normal capital repair campaign costing around Rs 60 crore and consequential production loss during the normal capital repair will be avoided," it said.
As part of BSL's expansion and modernisation plan, a new Cold Rolling Mill complex of 1.2 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) capacity will also come up by December, 2011, along with other auxiliary facilities.
More From This Section
Congratulating BSL employees on completion of the project, Verma told them to ensure timely completion of other modernisation and expansion projects while fully leveraging the new facilities for the progress and growth of the company.
BSL Managing Director V K Srivastava and SAIL Director (Technical) V K Gulhati were also present on the occasion.
SAIL plans to spend Rs 70,000 crore to augment its annual production capacity to 23.5 million tonnes by 2013 from the current 14 million tonnes.