The Hindu Business Line : SAIL plant expansion to kick off tomorrow

SAIL's IISCO Steel Plant (ISP) at Burnpur in West Bengal is set to begin its new journey on December 24 when Prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh will inaugurate ISP's Rs 9,600-crore greenfield modernisation and expansion programme.

The aim of the programme is to create the plant's annual production annual capacity of about 2.5 million tonnes (mt). West Bengal Chief Minister Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee will be present at the function along with two Cabinet Ministers.

A note said that the expansion of ISP is an integral part of SAIL's growth plan to produce 23 mt of hot metal by 2010.

The installation of an environment-friendly and energy-efficient steel-making technology, as envisaged in the expansion programme, will help ISP multiply its crude steel production capacity from 0.5 mt to 2.5 mt by 2010.

Among the facilities that will be installed as part of ISP's expansion are a large volume blast furnace, coke oven battery, two sinter plants, a heavy section mill and a wire rod and bar mill.

Besides increase in steel production, the new facilities will provide the plant with a competitive edge in terms of manpower productivity and other techno-economic parameters such as blast furnace productivity, coke rate and energy consumption.

The management of IISCO was taken over by the Centre in 1972. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of SAIL in 1978-79 and continued to be in the red due to high cost of operations stemming from its obsolete technology. It turned around only in 2003-04 following implementation of a revival plan formulated by the SAIL and approved by the Centre.

ISP was born in February 2006 following the amalgamation of IISCO with SAIL. The Burpur-based ISP has the capacity to produce 4.26 lakh tonnes of saleable steel, mainly structural and bars and roads and 2.54 lakh tonnes of pig iron annually.

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