Bhubaneswar: Tata Steel Friday commissioned country’s largest blast furnace at its Kalinganagar plant, which will help increase the production capacity to 8 million tonne per annum from 3 million tonne per annum, the company said in a release.
The company commenced the Rs 27,000-crore second phase of expansion of its Kalinganagar project in November 2018. Odisha has become Tata Steel’s largest investment destination in the country with a total cumulated investment of over Rs 1,00,000 crore in last 10 years, the steel major said in a statement. Blast furnace is a key component of an integrated steel manufacturing unit which is essential to produce hot metal at a temperature of up to 1,500 Celsius. “The commissioning of India’s largest blast furnace at Kalinganagar is a momentous occasion for the steel industry, setting new benchmarks in capacity, technology, and sustainability,” Tata Steel CEOcum-MD TV Narendran said.
Tata Steel said the new blast furnace, with a volume of 5,870 cubic metre of inner volume, is equipped with an eco-friendly design to optimise the steelmaking process. The expansion project includes raw material capacity expansion, upstream and mid-stream facilities, infrastructure and downstream facilities including a cold rolling mill complex.