Team News Riveting
Rourkela, April 5
SAIL, Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) ended the financial year 2024-25 with outstanding performance in key production areas and techno-economics.
The Steel Plant surpassed 4 Million Ton (MT) production mark in all the three major parameters i.e. Hot Metal, Crude Steel and Saleable Steel in 2024-25 with 2 operational Blast Furnaces and amidst the strategic decisions to close economically unviable units Hot Strip Mill-1 and Cold Rolling Mill.
The Blast Furnace-1 and Blast Furnace-5 produced 10,04,736 tons and 31,32,316 tons of Hot Metal respectively in FY’25 to register their best ever performance since inception. The Blast Furnace-5 achieved Capacity Utilization of 113 per cent, with productivity of 2.57 Tons per cubic metre per day (T/m3/day) in FY’25.
Sinter production from Sinter Plant-3 touched an all time high of 37,20,991 tons improving upon its earlier best record of 3710758 tons achieved in 2021-22. Similarly, Caster-3 of Steel Melting Shop-2 produced highest ever 16,33,774 tons of Slabs in the last fiscal improving upon its earlier record of 16,28,366 tons achieved in 2023-24. The Hot Strip Mill-2 (HSM-2) was another major contributor to the success as it rolled an all time high of 26,22,704 Tons of Slabs to produce record 25,56,717 HR Coils and thereby improving upon its previous best record of 23,75,457 tons HR Coils achieved in 2023-24. The New Plate Mill also rolled an all time best of 10,37,456 tons of Slabs to produce a record 9,31,919 tons of Plates. The excellent performance of the Steel Plant was also complimented by Zero fatality days achieved in the last fiscal.
In the Techno-economic front, the Steel Plant registered the Best Yearly performances in many key areas. The Specific Energy Consumption was 5.92 Giga Calories/tonne of Crude Steel while Specific Water Consumption was 2.98 Cubic Metre Per ton of crude steel. Both the Blast Furnaces clocked the best Shop Productivity rate of 2.31 T/m3/day in 2024-25, thereby improving upon the earlier best of 207 T/m3/day achieved in 2016-17. The furnaces also clocked the best ever Coke Rate of 391 Kg per ton of Hot Metal (THM), the previous best being 415 Kgs in the previous fiscal. The best Coal to Hot Metal ratio of 0.896 was also achieved in FY’25.
The spectacular performance of RSP was studded with numerous national records by individual departments in the last fiscal. The national records include Torpedo Ladle campaign life of 3009 heats achieved in July, 2024 and Highest ever long sequence in Caster #3 of 394 heats.
Alok Verma, Director In-Charge, RSP while congratulating the collective over the superlative performance has said, “We’ve stepped into the new fiscal with confidence and renewed determination, even amidst ongoing market challenges. Our goal now is to drive consistent, incremental improvements across operations which would certainly help us achieve our set targets in this fiscal.”
