Ispat to cut production cost of HR coil by Rs 2000 a tonne

Suresh Nair

Mumbai, Jan 6: Ispat Industries Ltd (IIL), which has indigenously developed a new hot charging process technology expects to bring down its per tonne cost of hot-rolled coil production by at least Rs 2,000.

Company insiders claim the technology has been introduced for the first time in the world, which considerably reduces the cost of steel-making while at the same time saving substantial energy in certain process developments.

Company sources claimed that this unique process technology for making steel will utilise up to 100 per cent of the hot-metal (liquid form of pig-iron) in its electric-arc furnace. This process has been successfully introduced at its Dolvi plant and stabilised well in the production process.

Under the process, hot metal from the blast furnace is charged in the electric-arc furnace as raw material for further processing. As the iron is in a molten form, it avoids use of any electricity in the arc-furnace.
Normally, the electric-arc furnace consumes around 550 to 600 units of power per tonne of steel-making. This translates into power cost of Rs 2,200 to Rs 2,400 per tonne. Consumption for power to this extent is totally eliminated.

The new process even provides for use of up to 20 per cent of cold sponge-iron along with hot metal as feed material with oxygen blowing to avoid use of electricity in the steel-making process. In this new process, sponge-iron is melted down with the heat of the molten metal from the blast furnace. The cost of steel-making with charging cold material in electric-arc furnace is considerably high due to usage of electric power.

According to sources, the innovative technology will open a new era in steel- making in the world steel industry. ILL will immensely benefit in terms of reduction in the cost of production, which is expected to make it one of the most competitive company in the steel industry.
ILL is in the last stage of completing its three-million tonne hot-rolled coil project at Dolvi in the Raigad district of Maharashtra. During fiscal 2000-01, IIL produced 8,88,484 metric tonne of hot-rolled (HR) coil and 11,60,775 metric tonne of sponge iron. In addition to this, other flat products aggregating to 4.44 lakh tonne were also produced at IIL’s Nagpur plant.