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Tata Steel Celebrates 50 Years of Operation for Sinter Plant No. 1

08/10/2009 - Tata Steel celebrates the Golden Jubilee of Sinter Plant No. 1 at the Jamshedpur Works.

Tata Steel recently celebrated the Golden Jubilee of Sinter Plant No. 1 at its facility in the Jamshedpur Works.
 
Tata Steel’s Sinter Plant No. 1 is the oldest sinter-making plant in India. After growth of sintering technology in India, several other steel plants such as SAIL and RINL also adopted the technology. Tata Steel also expanded its use of sintering, and now operates four Sinter Plants producing 7.8 million tonnes of sinter annually.
 
“The Golden Jubilee celebration is a nostalgic, historic occasion,” said Tata Steel Managing Director B Muthuraman, addressing the gathering. “Over the last 50 years, SP1 has played a vital role in steel making, thereby helping our country to improve its economy in a rather environment-friendly way. The Steel Works at Jamshedpur is truly a role model to all our other units. I wish all my colleagues the very best in days to come.”
 
One of the first technical achievements in steelmaking technology, the Sinter Plant No. 1 was installed at Tata Steel’s Jamshedpur Works to use fine iron ore amply available from the Noamundi and Joda mines. Although iron ore fines cannot be charged directly into the blast furnace for the production of hot metal, sinter plant allow the iron ore fines and dust to made into lumps with the help of solid fuel. Sinter Plant No. 1, the oldest sinter-making plant in India, was commissioned by Ms Lurgi of Germany during Tata Steel’s ‘Two Million Ton Program’ (TMP) in 1958.
 
Over the years, Sinter Plant No. 1 has helped Tata Steel to increase its iron ore reserves life in India through the use of fines and dust from the mines. The plant is competitive with new sinter plants globally, owing to its higher quality and lower cost of product, through constant improvement of its technology and facilities. Recently, the company has made investments to further improve its quality, with the result that SP1 sinter is now being consumed by larger blast furnaces without any problem. To help improve the environment, the sinter plant uses waste materials generated in the steel plant, and the use of sinter in the production of hot metal also helps to keep coal and coke requirements low. Thus Sinter Plant No. 1 is helping to improve economy, conserve natural resources, and preserve the environment.
 
The jubilee celebration for Sinter Plant No. 1 was attended by B Muthuraman, Managing Director, Tata Steel, as the chief guest and Raghunath Pandey, President, Tata Workers’ Union, as the guest of honor. H M Nerurkar, Executive Director, India and South East Asia, was also present on the occasion.
 
Present on the occasion were several renowned sinter-makers who have paved the way for the global stature that Tata Steel enjoys today; T. Mukherjee, M. S. Dighe, R. V. Chari, Amitabha Mukherjee, V. Balasubramanium, P. N. Roy, R. P. Tyagi, K. K. Mangal, and B. K. Das, to name a few.
 
Established in 1907 as Asia's first integrated private sector steel company, Tata Steel Group (including Corus) is among the world’s top ten steel producers with an annual crude steel capacity of over 24.4 million tonnes. It is now the world's second-most geographically-diversified steel producer, with operations in 26 countries and a commercial presence in over 50 countries. The Tata Steel Group, with a turnover of US$ 29 billion in FY '09, has over 80,000 employees across five continents and is a Fortune 500 company. Tata Steel India is the first integrated steel plant in the world, outside Japan, to be awarded the Deming Application Prize 2008 for excellence in Total Quality Management.