BHUBANESWAR: After a decade long wait, Neelachal Ispat Nigam Limited (NINL), a joint venture company of MMTC and the Odisha government, today announced commissioning of its steel making facilities at Kalinganagar in Odisha with an investment of Rs 1,640 crore, making it only the second public sector steel unit in the state, after the Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) set up in the sixties.
Though NINL had gone into production at its Kalinganagar plant in 2002, it was only making pig iron till date.
“NINL has commissioned on Sunday its 110-ton capacity Linz and Donawitz (LD) converter, one argon rinsing station and six strand continuous billet caster. Our fully automated BOF (Basic Oxygen Steel making) shop and continuous casting plant were commissioned on March 31. This is a historicand proud moment for the company. With production of steel billet now, NINL has become a full-fledged integrated steel plant. This is one of the best plants in the country and the plant is dedicated to all those who have been associated with the commissioning of this sophisticated project since the beginning”, Managing Director of the company S. P. Patnaik said.
He further informed, “Mecon, India's largest metallurgical consultancy company has provided the consultancy and project management services. It may be noted that, earlier NINL, located in Jajpur district, had also commissioned its 418 TPD oxygen plant with the help of German company LINDE.”
The technology for the steel shop was provided by SMS-Siemag, Germany and SMS-Concast, a world leader in steel melting technology, said Patnaik adding several Indian companies including HEC, Ranchi, BHEL-Bangalore and MECON were also involved in the project.
The company's financial performance is expected to improve with the production of value added product like billet as it would give better sales realizations, Patnaik said.
Due to low demand for pig iron, NINL utilized half of its rated pig iron capacity at four-lakh tons in 2012-13. “We are planning to produce pig iron and billets of four lakh tons each during 2013-14. This product mix will enhance the company's profit”, Patnaik said.
Plans are also afoot to increase NINL's hot metal production capacity from 1.1 million tons per annum (mtpa) to 3 mtpa by adding a blast furnace, a seven-meter coke oven battery and a 60-MW thermal power unit. PTISKN CR STS tvs DKR 04031335 NNNN Part 2 Stating that the company had initiated steps to set up a steel melting shop as a part of its second phase expansion in 2007, Patnaik said there are plans to put up a rolling mill to produce bars and rods in future.
Now, the new product mix would consist of billet and pig iron.Out of the 1.1 million tons production, billets would form the major share at about 0.9 million tons.
Because of low demand for pig iron, the company had earlier restricted its hot metal production to 0.7-0.8 million tons.
“With operational discipline at SMS, the company can be a low cost producer of steel very soon, thereby meeting the demand of domestic as well as export market”, said Joint Managing Director of the company, P.K. Mishra.
“The production of value added product like billet ascompared to pig iron, gives much better sales realisations and so, company'sfinancial performance is expected to improve in future days. In India and as well as in world, steel billet demand is much higher than pig iron,” said S. P. Padhi, Director (Finance).
NINL has MoU with its promoter company, MMTCBSE 4.99 % for marketing of all products including billets and pig iron, Patnaik said adding the company is also getting ready to operationalise its captive mines and launch its ambitious plan for a second blast furnace, second coke oven battery and capacity thermal power plant.
At present, NINL has an annual turnover of Rs 2000 and production of 6 lakh tons of pig iron. With the addition of SMS plant, the turnover would increase to Rs 3000 crore, Patnaik added.
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