Four of the major projects taken up under the modernisation and expansion programme of IISCO Steel plant (ISP) of the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) are close to commissioning stage, according to SAIL sources.
The projects are wire road mill, raw materials handling system designed to handle 7.56 million tonnes of raw materials annually, 3.88 mtpa sinter plant and two (750 tpd) oxygen plants.
The Rs 16,408-crore modernisation and expansion programme presupposes augmentation of the capacity to 2.5 million tonnes of crude steel annually. The major components of the programme include, among others, construction of a new seven-metre tall coke oven battery complete with environment-friendly coke dry quenching system, a new blast furnace of 4, 060 cubic metre volume with top pressure recovery turbine and coal dust injection system, three 150-tonne basic oxygen converters, two six-strand billet casters and one four-strand bloom-cum-beam blank caster, universal heavy section mill of 0.6 mt capacity, 0.5 mtpa wire rod mill and 0.75 mtpa bar mill with supporting auxiliary and service facilities.
Mr C S Verma, Chairman, SAIL, visited ISP plant in Burnpur recently and reviewed the progress of work. He urged the project officials to complete the programme at the earliest, saying, “The entire country is looking forward to timely commissioning of ISP modernisation.”
ISP came into being following amalgamation of IISCO (the erstwhile Indian Iron & Steel Company) with SAIL in February 2006. Prior to that, IISCO was a wholly-owned subsidiary of SAIL.