Second Ladle Furnace of RSP inaugurated

Orissa, Aug. 24, 2010 - The second Ladle Furnace of the Steel Melting Shop-II of the Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) has been inaugurated, RSP sources said today. The 150 ton Ladle Furnace was the part of Rs 197,66 crores scheme for "Simultenous Blowing in Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF) Convertors of Steel Melting Shop (SMS).

The scheme was conceived under current modernisation and expansion plan of SAIL to take SAIL's hot metal production capacity to a level of 23.5 million tonnes by 2012-13.The Ladle Furnace, inaugurated by SAIL chairman C S Verma yesterday, is meant for secondary refining of steel for finer chemistry control and maintenance of ideal temperature for continuous casting steel produced by BOF get treated in the Ladle Furnace before being sent to Slab casters to produce slabs of various sizes.

With the addition of one Ladle Furnace, SMS-II of RSP now has two Ladle Furnace, which will enhance the production capacity of SMS-II from existing 1.68 TT per annum to 1.85 MT of liquid steel per annum, there by increasing the production of slabs by 0.17 MT per annum.Besides, the addition of Ladle Furnace will ensure uninterrupted production of liquid steel from SMS-II, resulting in better time management and resources optimisation.