IISCo. Steel Plant, Burnpur 'lights up' country's largest blast furnace.

IISCo. Steel Plant, Burnpur witnessed a new dawn with the 'blowing in' of the country's largest blast furnace recently. It not only marks a new beginning for the 75-year old plant which is now in the final stages of its massive Rs. 18,000-crore modernisation and expansion programme. More significant, it also promises to herald a new era in the Bengal and India's industrial theatre, where few new green field steel projects have come up in the last two decades.

'We expect to get the first slag from the furnace within 30 hours of the blowing in. So far, all systems and processes have been functioning well,' an IISCo official close to the developments said.

Named 'Kalyani,' Blast Furnace no. 5 has a capacity of 4160 cubic metres and will produce some 8,000 tonnes of hot metal per day. The previous record for the country's largest furnace was held by 'Durga', which has a capacity of 4060 cubic metres and belongs to Rourkela Steel Plant also under SAIL. It has now been relegated to the second rank. Together the new furnace at Bhilai, these three furnaces will add some 8.5 million tonne (mt) of hot metal, accounting for the bulk of the addition to SAIL's hot metal capacity from 14 to 24 mt at an investment Rs. 70,000 crore.


ET