Tata Steel

The year 2016 was one of the toughest for the global steel industry worldwide; India being no exception. The demand for steel as well as prices went down, and this saw a sharp increase in imports. However, in 2016, the company started commercial production at Tata Steel Kalinganagar. This consolidated its leadership position in the domestic market while enabling it to address requirements of high-end grades of flat steel products for use in the automotive, oil & gas, shipbuilding and defence sectors, among others. Besides, exports of Tata Ferroshots also commenced from the plant.

On the production front, the year was remarkable as the Kalinganagar plant achieved a production of 1.5mt of hot metal and 1mt of hot rolled coils since its commissioning. The company hopes to add high-end grades for steel for application in the automotive, oil & gas and defence sectors.

It has also signed a definitive agreement to acquire 100% equity in Kalinganagar-based Brahmani River Pellets (BRPL), which will give a vertical start-up to enabling facilities. This will provide an upstream integration to meet input requirements and improving the feed mix at the Kalinganagar plant.

The location of BRPL’s assets will be significant to the Kalinganagar operations and iron ore from Tata Steel’s captive mines in Joda and Khondbond regions will be transferred through the BRPL pipeline. This will help reduce freight costs and gain operational efficiency of Blast Furnace operations.

In other things, the plant has upgraded its technology processes and introduced Gran Shot Systems in BF and CAS OB in steelmaking. It has also implemented Top Gas Recovery Turbines (TRT) to generate 38MW of power while Coke Dry Quenching helps generate 32MW of power.