SAIL to focus on speciality steels to beat competition

The Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) is in the process of a major transformation, maturing into a demand-based producer of specialised products for differentiated industry requirements, chairman PK Singh said.

Addressing workers at SAIL's Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP), on Friday, he said product differentiation is the key strategy to meet the competition in the current market scenario where steel in oversupply.

''In the present circumstances, only the best in the class will survive. At a time of high overcapacities across the world, product differentiation is the requirement of the hour and we have to match the best in quality, variety and standards,'' Singh said as he interacted with a cross section of around 700 employees at RSP.

The transformation of SAIL has begun and ''let us all be part of it,'' he told the RSP collective.

SAIL's director (finance) Anil Chaudhary, director (technical) Raman and CEO of RSP Ashwini Kumar also participated in the intensive interaction with the employees during the brainstorming session.

Singh further said, ''Rourkela has one of the best workforces in the industry where the ramping up after modernisation was achieved in one of the shortest times. These interactions are aimed at enthusing the collective to exploit full potential of installed technologies and manpower. In the current challenging times, company's targets and priorities have to widely disseminate at all SAIL units.

SAIL's Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP), which boasts of a 4,300 mm wide state-of-the-art new plate mill, has carved a name for itself as a unique producer of special grades of steels. This mill has the potential to capture demand from niche segments and be the desired choice for top consumers, he said.

The plant has teamed up with the Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory (DMRL) and the Indian Navy to develop special grade DMR-249A steel plates for Indian Naval requirements. Also, the plant will meet the indigenous requirements of various sectors, including manufacturing, power etc and the construction sector.

RSP's new plate mill along with the special plate plant have created unique facilities for making of special grade steels for defence applications, thereby increasing the capacity of quenched, tempered plates with desired ballistic qualities. The plant also aims at catering to niche markets as well as to reduce import dependence.

RSP now produces steel plates with newer specifications (like API 5L X-70 PSL-2 grade), cost effective and quality plates for the construction sector produced using TMCP (Thermo Mechanically Controlled Process). These products, mostly import substitutes aimed at the defence sector, are already under development.

Besides, the new plate mill is rolling boiler quality plates of a thickness of 140 mm in the grade IS 2002 GR-II, which is again an import substitution product.