India: RINL likely to resume operation of third blast furnace by end-Sep

Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (the holding company of Vizag Steel) is likely to resume operation of its third blast furnace from late September, sources indicated. It may be recalled this furnace had been stalled around January 2022.

RINL, like other mills, had also faced the brunt of the double whammy of record high prices of coking coal last year - when the Russia-Ukraine war had started end-February, followed by an overall lacklustre market for steel. These factors had forced the Vizag-based plant to stop operating one of its three blast furnaces.

It may be mentioned, RINL's total capacity of crude steel from its three blast furnaces is at around 7.3mnt per annum and of hot metal, at 7.5 mntpa. Each BF has a capacity to produce about 2.5 mntpa of hot metal. All three together have a capacity for 18,000 tonnes per day (tpd) of hot metal.

Two BFs have 3,200 Cum capacity and the third, 3,800 Cum. This last one has remained in shutdown mode since early 2022.

"The BF is ready for operation. The only issue is raw material (iron ore availability)," a source informed SteelMint.

It seems a major portion of NMDC's high-grade iron ore was being diverted towards other private sector plants and RINL had been asked to source from NMDC's Karnataka mines, where the ore is not of as high quality as that from the Chhattisgarh mines.

Adequate and steady supply of iron ore is a prerequisite if the third BF has to start operations.

Coke purchase tender floated recently

Possibly keeping in mind resumption of the third BF, the PSU long steels major has floated a tender for procuring 30,000 tonnes of BF-grade coke. The bid opening date is 22 September and the bid-offer validity is for 75 days from this date.

Production volume up m-o-m in Aug

RINL's crude steel output in August 2023 was at 397,000 t against 388,000 t in July, up 2% m-o-m.

It achieved a sales volume of 157,000 t of value-added steel last month, its best-ever monthly sales in this category since inception.

It achieved a 39% growth in August 2023 turnover at INR 2,502 crore against INR 1,806 crore seen in August 2022.