COVID-19: Rourkela Steel Plant aims at 4.1 MT hot metal production in FY21

Bhubaneswar, Apr 2 () Buoyed by the timelycompletion of many key projects in the just concluded fiscal,the Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) has said it has set a target ofproducing 4.1 MT of hot metal during 2020-21.

The RSP, a unit public sector steel behemoth SAIL,also seeks to produce 3.9 MT of crude steel and 3.55 MT ofsaleable steel.

"For the financial year 2020-21, we have taken up theproduction targets of 4.1 MT hot metal, 3.9 MT of crude steeland 3.55 MT of saleable steel, RSPs CEO Dipak Chattaraj saidon Wednesday.

The goals are tough, but so are we. We have to makeevery possible effort to protect our pride and dignity. Letsstrive to have an Unnattara and Utkrushttara Plant, he saidin a message on the commencement of the new fiscal and UtkalDibas, Odishas formation day.

Referring to the coronavirus outbreak, he said thisyear is going to be very different from the ones before.

Itseems that the severe impact of COVID-19 on theeconomy is going to cause a paradigm shift in the behaviour ofthe market, the CEO said.

Stating that a high-level task force is monitoringtheCOVID-19 situation, he said that intensive sanitization andcleaning operations are continuing both inside the plant andin the township, while a massive awareness campaign has beenlaunched using every medium possible.

"We are rationalising production depending on thesituation and deploying minimum manpower accordingly, the RSPCEO said.

To strike an effective balance between the need forsocial distancing and requirements of the Plant, at anyparticular point of time, we are allowing 40 to 60 per centemployees of various units to work from home, he said.

Describing 2019-20 as the year of consolidation andresolution, Chattaraj said that external factors like theglobal slowdown in the steel market and fluctuating pricescombined with internal issues like escalating cost ofproduction, huge inventory and high debt burden kept ourbottom line stressed.

With a special focus on sustainability and long termgrowth, RSP managed to resolve some long pending issues whoseimmediate liquidation was critical for the survival of theorganization, he said.

These could no longer be delayed. While we were awarethat these issues required long shutdowns which would resultin production loss, we took it as a challenge and went on tocomplete them within the schedule for sustainable productionand environment management, he said.

Some of these projects that will have long term impacton the sustainability of the Plant are installation ofDoghouses in two old convertors of SMS-2, erection of wastegas cleaning systems in Kiln-2,3 & 4 of calcining plant-2 andrelining of blast furnace-4 which was planned in 2017.

Now the furnace is getting ready for operation, theCEO said.

Despite many odds RSP set many new benchmarks in thelast fiscal as its blast furnace-5 crossed 15 MT productionmark in February and the last 1 MT was made in only 132 days,Chattaraj said.

All-time best hot metal production was clocked with 2furnace operation, he said.

Our three main mills, namely plate mill, new platemill and hot strip mill have all registered their all-timebest annual performance with combined production of 3.1 MT,Chattaraj added. SKNSBN SBN