New Highs in Hot Metal & Crude Steel Production

Central Chronicle News
Bhilai, Mar 25: SAIL-Bhilai Steel Plant has been recording many highs in the last quarter of Fiscal Year 2020-21. With about a week to go before the Fiscal Year ends, the Plant has created several new records on March 24, 2021. This includes best ever day production of hot metal and crude steel. The Plant has once again recorded highest hot metal production among all SAIL Plants in a day.
Accompanied by senior officers of the Plant, Director I/c SAIL-Bhilai Steel Plant, Anirban Dasgupta, Executive Director Works, Rajeev Sehgal personally visited blast furnaces, steel melting shop, Bar & Rod Mill, Universal Rail Mill, Refractory Material Plant 3 on Thursday to congratulate employees for their record making performances.
The Plant’s Blast Furnaces recorded highest hot metal production of 19,105 T on March 24, 2021, surpassing previous best of 19,030 T on March 04, 2021 and again recording highest hot metal in SAIL in a day. It may be recalled that when on Jan 14, 2021, the Plant smashed a 10 year old record by producing 18,208 T hot metal, a new day record in SAIL had been set. Later on Feb 17, 2021, Feb 28, March 02, and March 04, 2021, the Plant again created new records of hot metal production.
The Plant’s Modex unit, Steel Melting Shop 3 recorded best ever production of 9576 T of crude steel on March 24, 2021, surpassing previous best of 9444 T produced a day earlier on March 23, 2021. With 71 heats produced at SMS 2, total crude steel production of 18,075 T on March 24, 2021 has also been the best as against 17,970 T on January 13, 2011.
The Plant’s Universal Rail Mill, a Modex unit, also rolled 376 blooms on 24th March 21, surpassing previous best of 367 blooms on January 31, 2021.
Bar & Rod Mill, another Modex unit that has been creating many records in Q4 of current fiscal, also recorded best ever day rolling of 1090 billets in 12 MM TMT section as against previous best of 1080 billet on March 21, 2021. Refractory Material Plant 3 also recorded best ever day production of 1452 T as against previous best of 1397 T on March 17, 2021.
Significantly, the Plant also recorded its lowest specific energy rate of 5.685 Giga calories per tonne of crude steel with crude steel production of 18,027 T on March 24, 2021.
Congratulating members of each shop that have made records along with members of associated shops, Director I/c urged them to keep up the tempo and energy levels high in the days to come. Hailing the Blast Furnaces team for having overcome some stumbling blocks in the recent days to record such new highs in production, Dasgupta said Team Blast Furnaces has proved its mettle.
Congratulating Bhilai Collective for putting up a sterling performance, ED Works, Sehgal said each shop has performed as a team. The strength of Team Bhilai lies in working on consistency and persistence. Time and again, we have proved that we can raise our efficiency levels to meet targets set for us in spite of many constraints, he said, expressing confidence that Team Bhilai will continue to excel in the days and months to come.
Accompanying Director I/c and ED Works at Blast Furnaces were CGM I/C Iron, Suryawanshi, CGM BFs, Tapas Dasgupta, CGM T&D, AK Tiwari, CGM SMS 2, VK Dhawan, CGM Quality, Sandeep Kar, CGM SP3, Nandanwar and other senior officers of the Plant.