India: Fire Breakout at SAIL's Bokaro Hot Strip Mill

Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) is facing serious breakdown in its HSM Hot strip mill in its Bokaro Steel Plant , Jharkhand.

According to the market sources,a major fire broke out in transformer of Hot strip mill yesterday at around 12 pm in the afternoon.The expected loss is around 11,000-12,000 MT hot metal per day. Currently the mill is under maintenance shutdown as the repair work has been initiated.

As per sources,the production in the mill will remain hampered for about 10 days. The shut down will impact the availability of thinner gauge HRC with wider width.

SAIL-Bokaro Steel plant majorly produce flat products like Hot Rolled Coils, Hot Rolled Plates, Hot Rolled Sheets, Cold Rolled Coils, Cold Rolled Sheets, and Galvanized Plain and Corrugated (GP/GC) Sheets.

It's hot metal capacity in FY17 was 3.4 MnT pa which was expected to ramp up to 5.8 MnT pa after expansion.

Thus fire incident in hot rolled strip mill will affect the production and lead to material shortage (flat steel) in domestic market.

SAIL Crude steel production up 8% Y-o-Y basis in Q3 FY18-According to company's quarterly results,Crude steel output of SAIL was registered at 3.884 MnT in Q3FY18 up by 1.38% compared to 3.831 MnT in Q2FY18.

However on yearly basis the same went up by 8% as compared to 3.6 MnT in Q3FY17.

Meanwhile company's Saleable steel production is recorded 3.6 MT in Q3FY18 which is down by 2% Q-o-Q basis against 3.658 MT in Q2 FY18.Also on yearly basis the same went up 9% in comparison with 3.3 MT in Q3FY17.