Despite a sluggish market, Rourkela Steel Plant has once again achieved steel production levels, which is higher than its capacity in all its major units during August, 2009.
With production of 1.77 lakh tonnes of hot metal, 1.68 lakh tonnes of crude steel and 1.74 lakh tonnes of total saleable steel, the steel plant has registered a capacity utilisation of 104 per cent, 104.5 per cent and 122.5 per cent, respectively in August.
In the rolling mills zone, the plate mill made an outstanding effort by producing 42,247 tonnes of plates thereby, utilising 166 per cent of its capacity, the steel plant sources said.
On the dispatch front, it recorded the best figure in August by dispatching 1.81 lakh tonnes of saleable steel.
With this performance, RSP has also carved out a capacity utilisation of 107.5 per cent, 106.3 per cent and 114.4 per cent in the production of hot metal, crude steel and saleable steel, respectively in the first five months of the current financial year.
Apart from production, the steel plant also excelled in techno-economic parameters. In August 2009, it achieved a coke rate of 540 kg per tonne of hot metal, sources said.
This was lower than the previous best August record of 552 kg per tonne of hot metal which was registered in 2008.
The coke rate for April-August period was also impressive with the plant registering 540 kg per tonne of hot metal which is the best ever for any April-August period.
On the energy consumption front, the steel plant registered a significant improvement over the previous best.
In August 2009, specific energy consumption was the best with 7.03 Gega Calorie per tonne of crude steel against the previous best of 7.107 Gega Calorie per tonne of crude steel registered in 2008.
Similarly, the specific energy consumption during the period April-August 2009, was 7.03 Gega Calorie per ton of crude steel which was the best ever for the period as well as a significant improvement over the previous best of 7.145 registered during the corresponding period last year, the sources said.
