THE YEAR AT A GLANCE

  Total demand for finished steel including domestic requirement and for exports in 1997-98 was 24.51 million tonnes. Against this, the domestic production during the year was 23.37 million tonnes leaving a gap of 1.14 million tonnes which was met through imports. During 1998-99 the demand for finished steel (Carbon & alloy steel) is 26.73 million tonnes. Against this, the availability is projected at 27.73 million tonnes of finished steel.

Total production of finished steel in 1997-98 was 23.37 million tonnes. India is the 10^th largest Steel Producing Country of the world. Main producers contribute 10.44 million tonnes (45%) and secondary producers 12.93 million tonnes (55%). During 1997-98, the share of main and secondary producers in the total production of finished steel has remained more or less the same as in 1996-97.

Production of Finished steel (carbon & Alloy steel) in the four integrated steel plants of SAIL and its subsidiaries during 1997-98 was about 7.21 million tonnes registering a decline of 1.66% over last year.

Production of Finished steel in Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) was 1.62 million tonnes in 1997-98 as against 1.90 million tonnes in 1996-97 registering an increase of 14.5%. TISCO produced 3 million tonnes of Finished steel in 1997-98 as against 2.00 million tonnes in 1996-97 registering decrease of about 5% over last year.

The Steel Consumers Council was constituted on 31.1.1986 under the Chairmanship of Minister for Steel and Mines to provide a forum for interaction between Government and various sections of steel consumers. The main function of the council is to advise and assist the Government in matters relating to availability of steel materials, quality and the market trend in the iron and steel industry in the country. The last meeting of the council was held at New Delhi on 30.6.1998.

Production of saleable steel in IISCO, a subsidiary of SAIL in 1997-98 was 0.315 million tonnes as against 0.338 million tonnes in 1996-97. During 1998-99 (upto September,1998) IISCO has produced 0.145 million tonnes of saleable steel as against the target of 0.159 million tonnes.

During the year, SAIL has achieved a turnover of Rs.14624.07 crores (Previous year Rs.14114.01 crores). The profit before tax at Rs.148.59 crores (Previous year Rs.588.03 crores) is after providing for interest of Rs.1553.76 crores (Previous year Rs.1179.48 crores ) and depreciation of Rs.794.86 crores (Previous year Rs.690.70 crores). After providing for Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) of Rs.15.60 crores (Previous year Rs.75.86 crores), the Net Profit after tax is Rs. 132.99 crores (Previous year Rs.515.17 crores).

There are three steel plants where modernisation works were in progress during the year viz. Durgapur Steel Plant, Rourkela Steel Plant and Bokaro Steel Plant. SAIL has incurred a capital expenditure of Rs.1955 crores during the year on fixed assets and capital work-in-progress, which has been primarily financed through borrowings from external sources. The latest position of the modernisation work in these plants and progress of major capital schemes in Bhilai Steel Plant are given below:

The modernisation of Durgapur Steel Plant (DSP) has been completed during the year. Major thrust was given on stabilisation of production and achievement of rated capacity. Benefits have started flowing in and are expected to increase further in future years. Production has picked up and has shown a growth of 5 per cent in Hot Metal, 9 per cent in Crude Steel and 14 per cent in Saleable Steel as compared to previous year.

At Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP), the various global and indigenous packages under Phase-II Modernisation are in the final stages of completion. The balance works in modification of Hot Strip Mill and Reheating Furnace of Hot Strip Mill is progressing. Trial production has started at SMS-2- Continuous Caster at RSP.

At Bokaro Steel Plant (BSL), major production facilities of Modernisation like both Continuous Casting Machines, Steel Refining Unit and Coiler-4 have been installed. Trials of Coiler-3 are under progress. Balance works for Mill proper are nearing completion, Modificiation of Reheating Furnace-3 to Walking Beam Furnace, and Coal Dust Injection system of BF-4 are under progress.

At Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP), Modernisation of Rail & Structural Mill (Stage-I Phase-I) has been commissioned. Oxygen Plant-II expansion and Twin hearth Furnace No.4 are in the final stages of completion. Work in Sinter Plant-3 and Cold Dust Injection system for BF No.6 are in progress.

With completion of modernisation schemes, substantial improvements are likely to take place in terms of techno-economic parameters, particularly, specific energy consumption, coke rate etc. besides better quality and increase in production capacity of saleable steel.

As a part of Government's initiative for development of North-East, a Hot Dip Galvanishing Line of annual capacity of 40,000 tonnes is being set-up at Dagaon, Assam for which site activities have started.

VSP had fixed a target of 3.4 million tones of Hot Metal, 2.92 million tonnes of Liquid Steel, 2.58 million tonnes of Saleable Steel for the year 1998-99. During the first half of the year inspite of sluggish international market and unfavourable domestic market conditions VSP has achieved production of 1.52 million tonnes of Hot Metal, 1.26 million tonnes of Liquid Steel and 1.10 million tonnes of Saleable Steel which represents target fulfillment of 91%, 91% and 87% respectively. This corresponds to 4% growth in Liquid Steel and Saleable Steel over Apr-Sep'97. The production of Billets, Bars and MMSM products have registered a growth of 2%, 13% and 28% respectively over the corresponding period of last year. There has been improvement in the production of the value added steel from 114605 tonnes during Apr-Sep'97 to 118534 tonnes during Apr-Sep'98.

It may be noted that during the licensing days, whereas steel production through the integrated route was reserved for the public sector, EAF units were being sanctioned. However, only very small capacities were being considered. And it was only in Sept., 1990 that capacities upto 1 million tonne were made eligible for sanction.

Presently, there are 187 electric arc furnace based steel plants in the country with an aggregate capacity of 10.67 million tonnes per annum. Of these, as many as 143 units with an aggregate estimated capacity of 5.34 million tonnes are reportedly closed. Various reasons such as rising cost of inputs, increasing electricity tariffs, shortage of power, shortage of finance etc. are believed to be responsbile for this, underscoring the forces of change sweeping the steel sector.

Production of Ingots/concast billets by EAF units, which are reporting their production to the office of the Development Commissioner for Iron & Steel, during 1997-98 was 4.33 Million tonnes. The above figures do not include production of steel by the casting units registered with erstwhile DGTD.

During 1997-98 there were about 922 Induction Furnace Units with a capacity of 9.2 million tonnes. However during the year it is estimated only 733 units were in operation. The capacity utilisation of the IF Units was only about 55%. The total production of the IF Units was estimates to be around 4.42 million tonnes.

The Alloy/Stainless Steel industry contributes about 7-10% of the conuntry's production of finished steel. During 1997-98 the production of Alloy/Stainless Steel was about 1.65 million tonnes which was about the same as last year.

Production of Iron Ore (including Concentrates) during the year 1997-98 was 73.45 against 68.17 million tonnes showing an increase of 7.7% than the previous year. Statewise production figures indicate that Madhya Pradesh was the Chief iron ore producing State accounting for 25% of the total production during 1997-98, followed by Karnataka with 21%, Bihar19%, Goa 18% and Orissa16%. The remaining production would be from Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

The performance of the two Public Sector Iron Ore Mining Companies viz : National Mineral Development Corporation Limited (NMDC) and Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Limited (KIOCL) was as under :

During the year 1997-98 NMDC produced 14.59 Million Tonnes of Iron Ore and 30596 carats of diamond. For the year 1997-98, the Company paid a dividend of 25% on the equity capital amounting to Rs.36.34 crores, which was the eighth year in succession for payment of dividend.

In view of the increasing demand for Bailadila Iron Ore, two new Iron Ore Mining Projects are being undertaken in this region at Deposit No.10/11A and 11/B, the later in the Joint Sector. Each of these Projects is designed to produce 5 million tonnes run-of-mine (ROM) Ore.

During the year 1997-98, the Company recorded a Gross Margin of Rs.142.50 crores and a net profit after tax of Rs.81.81 crores against a target of Rs.125 crores (gross margin) and Rs.74.10 crores of net profit respectively. The Company paid a dividend of 3.50% of the paid up capital amounting to Rs.22.81 crores in 1997-98. The performance of KIOCL has been hampered by severe power cuts imposed by the Karnataka Electricity Board (KEB).

Sponge iron is a metallic product produced by direct reduction of high grade iron ore or iron ore pellets in the solid state. Also known as Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) or Hot Briquetted Iron (HBI), it contains a large percentage of metallic iron. India is the second largest Sponge Iron producers in the world. This is a substitute for steel melting scrap used mainly in the electric steel making and in BOF processes. The indigenous availability of metal scrap is low and large quantities have to be imported in order to meet indigenous demand.

The growth of sponge iron specifically during the last five years in terms of capacity and production has been substantial. The installed capacity of sponge iron increased from 1.52 million tonnes per annum in 1990-91 to 6.06 million tonnes per annum in 1998-99. The production has increased from 0.9 million tonnes in 1990-91 to 5.31 million tonnes in 1997-98. The production of sponge iron has been reported to 2.64 million tonnes during April-September, 1998.

The pig iron industry profile is constantly undergoing changes with more mini blast furnace units in the private/secondary sector coming up in the post liberalization era. The contribution of private/secondary Sector units, from only 8% during 1991-92 has increased to 48% in 1996-97, and further to 50% during the period 1997-98. The secondary sector units are also producing foundry grade pig iron including low sulphur and low phosphorous grades. During 1997-98, 3.39 million tonnes of pig iron was produced against the projected demand of 2.9 million tonnes.

Ferro alloys are essential additives in steel making used for imparting desired properties to steel. The product mix of ferro alloy industry mainly consists of Ferro Manganese (Fe Mn), Ferro Silicon (Fe Si.) and Ferro Chrome (Fe Cr.) - called the Bulk ferro alloys.There are 35 large and medium size units (including four 100% EOUs) with an installed capacity of 1.3 million tonnes. The production of Ferro Alloys during 1997-98 was about 7.91 lakh tonnes which was 14% more than the previous year.

Refractories are the primary materials used in the internal lining of industrial furnaces and are classified on the basis of chemical composition into Acid Refractories, Basic Refractories and Neutral Refractories. With the technological changes in the steel industry, the major thrust has been on economising on the use of the materials and improving technology in each area of operation/process where refractories are being used. In general, it can be said that all these improvements have resulted in lowering specific consumption of refractories per tonne of steel.The production of Refractories during 1997-98 was 7.09 lakh tonnes which was 7.4% lower than the previous year.

The Computerised Management Information System (MIS) developed for Ministry of Steel with the assistance of National Informatics Centre (NIC) is functional in the area of Accounting and Budgeting Section Activity Monitoring System, Industrial Entrepreneurs memoranda System, VIP References Monitoring, Public Grievances Monitoring and Monitoring of Steel Production and Supply Imports/Exports, Duties, Prices, apparent consumption and category-wise production. A Local Area Network of about 50 nodes has been established by NIC in the Ministry for resource and information sharing among the various user communities in the Ministry. An attempt is being made to setup Intranet by computerising Work-Flow & providing Web enabled applications in the Ministry on Local Area Network (LAN). Pentium based computers have been provided to senior officials in the Ministry. Software Standardization has been done by providing Office Automation Suit in Windows environment to ensure compitability among the Computer Systems provided with End-users. A Five-year IT Plan has been prepared for the Ministry in which 2 to 3% budget has been earmarked for providing computers, software development and training to the users in the Ministry. All the computers on LAN have been provided browsing and e-mail facility on Internet. Various in-house training programmes on LAN operations, E-mail & browsing operations on Internet and Windows-based Office Automation Suits have been organised by NIC Computer Centre in the Ministry from time to time.

Both Public and Private Sector Iron and Steel plants continued their Research and Development activities to solve their plant specific problems and also to develop new processes and products. Emphasis was on improving the quality of the steel products, utilization of wastes and reduction of energy consumption as well as cost of production.

In pursuance of the decision of the Cabinet to spend upto Rs.150 crores per annum for Research & Development efforts in the iron and steel sector, Government has set up an Empowered Committee to approve Scientific Research Programs and to provide overall direction to the research efforts on the iron and steel in the country. The Committee is working under the Chairmanship of Secretary, Ministry of Steel and includes representatives of major steel producers and other experts in the field.. To source the committee its secretariat, Research & Technology Mission is being set up.

Iron & Steel Plants , both in public and private sectors continued to give thrust on the reduction in the consumption of energy. Introduction of coal dust injection in the blast furnaces; mixed gas firing in stoves of blast furnaces; on line ceiling of steam, blast and gas leakage; introduction of fuel efficient burners; optimisation of combustion and modification of thermal regime in different shops of SAIL's plants have resulted in substantial reduction in energy consumption.

TISCO have also taken various measures for reduction of energy consumption like higher carbon mono-oxide (CO) yield, higher usage of by-product gases, lowest specific petro fuel consumption, introduction of rich CO gas firing system in Sinter Plant resulting reduction in energy consumption.

At Essar Steel Ltd., a good amount of developmental work has been going on for energy conservation like hot discharge of DRI, change of reformer fuel, retrieving power from turbo expander, decreasing tap to tap time at EAF etc.

Ferro Alloy Corporation (FACOR) is using hot charge mix directly during the reaction in the production of low carbon ferro chrome which helps in reduction in specific power consumption and also helps in increasing production of the alloy.

The Iron & Steel Plants have drawn up short term and long term action plans for expeditious achievement of Pollution Control norms, wherever these have not so far been achieved. The Environment Laboratory Group of RDCIS, SAIL provide services to steel plants in the field of Specialised statutory assessment of air, water and noise in steel plants and mines and also development and transfer of methodologies,Air and water pollution control, and Water and solid waste management.

VSP has been according high priority for maintaining a very clean and healthy environ- mental monitoring activities in respect of ambient air, stack emmissions and effluents are being carried out regularly to ensure good work environment. Several schemes have been introduced for recycling all toxic spilages in Coal chemicals plant, so as to improve the quality of effluent and tar sludge is being recycled in coke oven batteries to prevent accumulation of waste and to also generate extra revenue.

The private sector companies like Mukand Ltd., Sunflag Iron & Steel Co. Ltd. and Mahindra Ugine Co. Ltd are among some of the Companies making efforts to keep the pollution levels within the prescribed acceptable limits.

The Public Sector Undertakings under the administrative control of the Ministry of Steel continued their efforts for filling up the backlog vacancies in respect of Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes/Other Backward Classes.

The Public Sector Undertakings have also continued the process of identifying and implementing programmes aimed at the upliftment of these communities in the peripheral areas around their area of operation.

The progressive use of Hindi in the Ministry, its attached office and public sector undertakings has been widely encouraged. PSUs are given incentives by awarding Chal Vaijayanti (Running Shield); Shields and Trophies. Under an incentive scheme cash prizes of Rs.15,000/-, Rs.10,000/- and Rs.7,500/- are awarded to the writers of original books in Hindi on steel and its allied subject.

A Hindi fortnight was organised in the Ministry from 1^st Sept., 1998 to 15^th Sept.,1998. Various competitions were held during this period and winner were awarded cash prizes. The Honourable Steel Minister made an appeal to all the officers and staff of the Deptt., attached office and PSUs to further increase the use of Hindi in their official work.