BS reported that Mr Pankaj Gautam CEO of Steel Authority of India Limited’s Bhilai Steel Plant is racing against time to lift the mill’s crude steel capacity by 2 million tonnes to 7 million tonnes on schedule and then run all new facilities to full steam by June 2013.

Asked if Bhilai Steel Plant will then still have space to accommodate more capacity in the existing plant area, Mr Gautam said that “Some intelligent planning will allow us to squeeze in another three million tonne at Bhilai. The land scene is such that it behoves all existing mills to make optimum use of space.”

He explains that right technology intervention and substitution of some small machines, all relics of the past, by a very large one will allow Bhilai Steel Plant to finally become a 10 million tonne plant. By way of illustration, Mr Gautam said that the commissioning of a very large blast furnace of 4,060 cubic meter as part of Bhilai Steel Plant’s ongoing expansion will make three old BFs redundant. Their dismantling will make room for installation of another giant BF.

Similarly as the Bhilai Steel Plant commissions a new steel melting shop with a universal rail mill in the downstream, an old SMS equipped with energy-inefficient twin hearth furnace will be scrapped. This will allow building of a new SMS for making steel through continuous casting route. In the downstream will be a new mill, the product profile of which will be decided at a later stage, depending on the emerging demand pattern of flat and long products.

Mr Gautam further said that “The challenge is two fold. We want more capacity. At the same time, we must make all our steel flawlessly clean and energy efficiently.”

The Bhilai Steel Plant may be SAIL’s flagship, but there remains much scope for improvement in its running of coke oven batteries and in raising the level of coal dust induction in BFs to reduce use of metallurgical coal for which we are heavily import dependent.

(Sourced from BS)