The Hindu : Bhilai to make long rails

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 07, 2003

Business

Business

Bhilai to make long rails

By N. N. Sachitanand

BANGALORE JAN. 6. Bhilai Steel Ltd. (BSL), a constituent of the Steel Authority of India Ltd., has taken up a project to make 240 metre long rails. At present, this integrated steel plant is able to turn out 26 metre long rails. However, the Indian Railways is now shifting to the use of longer rails involving lesser number of welded joints during track laying.

The new project, involving an investment of around Rs. 350 crores, will include facilities for straightening, cutting and testing of 80 metre lengths of rolled rails and welding together three pieces to form a 240 metre long piece. The project is expected to be commissioned in the first quarter of 2004.

This year the Rail Mill will be supplying around 6.69 lakh tonnes of rails to the Railways and 31,000 tonnes to other customers such as the Pipawa Port in Gujarat. Because the Steel Melting Shop is now able to deliver steel of below 2.5 parts per million of hydrogen, there is a demand for Bhilai rails abroad. Some exports have been made to countries like South Korea, New Zealand, Sweden, Argentine and others.

Bhilai's Plate Mill, which has a capacity of 1.20 lakh tonnes per annum, was in the doldrums for the past few years due to low demand and anti-dumping measures imposed by the U.S., to which a major portion of the output was exported. This year the Plate Mill has achieved a remarkable turnaround due to a combination of cost saving and efficiency improvement measures, combined with targeting of alternative markets like China, Japan, West Asia, the Philippines, Italy and South Korea. International prices have also risen from $210 per tonne in April this year to $250 per tonne at present.

The production from the Plate Mill was 6.26 lakh tones in 2001-02 and is likely to touch 7.3 lakh tones this year. The total shipment of plates abroad during April to November this year was 1.52 lakh tones valued at Rs. 167 crores. Export orders at hand for dispatch in the next three months amount to over one lakh tonnes. The types of plates being exported include mild steel, high tensile steel to China and Japan and Boron bearing steel to Europe.

A Rs. 200 crore project to modernise the mill, including the introduction of automatic gauge control, is being evaluated and will be implemented in the next one year.

Three years ago Bhilai introduced the injection of non-coking coal dust technology in one of its blast furnaces. This experiment has been successful and, according to According to the Managing Director, B. K. Singh, an injection rate of 80 kg of coal dust per tonne of hot metal (the molten iron produced from the blast furnace) has been achieved. This translates to a saving of roughly Rs. 45 per tonne of hot metal, since the non-coking coal dust substitutes an equal amount of costlier coke charged in the blast furnace. Bhilai is now planning to introduce this technology in four more of its blast furnaces in the next six months.

Bhilai suffers from a major bottleneck. Forty per cent of its liquid steel production comes from an antiquated Twin Hearth Furnace melting shop. If this is replaced by a more modern converter, caster route, its performance could improve tremendously both in terms of specific energy consumption as well as production. A six-strand billet caster and ladle furnace costing Rs. 104 crores has also been proposed.

Another problem looming up for Bhilai is the impending depletion of its captive iron ore mines at Dilli and Rajhera. These mines may last another eight to nine years at the present rate of ore consumption by the plant. BSL has identified a new deposit at Raughat for its future ore supplies, but this is at present embroiled in clearances by the Environment and Forests ministries. Since it takes nearly seven to eight years to bring a mine to production level, the Central Government needs to take quick action about this.

BSL has the distinction of being the only constituent of SAIL to deliver profits ever since its commissioning in the late 1950s. Even last year, when the steel industry was in doldrums due to plummeting prices, BSL turned in a net profit of Rs. 477 crores. According to Mr. Singh, with better steel prices reigning; the net profit this year should cross Rs. 600 crores. The production of finished steel was 2.278 million tones in the first half of the current fiscal (2002-03).

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