SAIL to Invest ₹30,000 Crore to Increase Rourkela Steel Plant to 9.4 MTPA by 2030

One of the first public sector steel plants in the country Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP)-is all set to undergo a massive expansion with the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) deciding to invest ₹30,000 crore to augment the existing capacity of RSP, which is located here, to 9.4 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) by 2030. It will also help significantly strengthen India’s steel production which is expected to accelerate crucial sectors like defense, oil & gas and automobiles.

RSP, which is based in Rourkela in Odisha about 320 km from Bhubaneswar, has its origins in the 1950s when it was set up with German collaboration and found a pivotal place in the industrial landscape of India. Its first blast furnace, Parvati, was lit by Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India, on February 3, 1959, marking the official setting up of the plant.

SAIL has a steelmaking capacity of 20.30 MTPA, out of which RSP has 4.4 MTPA. Under the additional expansion plan, the capacity of the plant is set to rise from 4.4 MTPA to 9.4 MPTA. This will enable RSP to share nearly 25% of SAIL’s aimed 35-MTPA output development capacity by 2030.

Commenting on the development, Alok Verma, Director of charge, RSP noted that the expansion will be over 1,200 acres on the southeastern side of the existing plant. “With this expansion, we expect to capture a bigger wallet share of the segments we serve,” he said. It is presently manufacturing wide plates, hot rolled (HR) coils, spiral welded and electric resistance welded pipes, and cold rolled non-oriented (CRNO) steel which finds its application in shipbuilding, rail wagons, LPG cylinders, automobiles, oil & gas, motors, generators, transformers and others. It is complemented by a specialty mill in RSP for producing naval-grade, armor-grade and quenched & tempered plates for defense uses.

The expansion project sets out to erect an integrated factory with such facilities as a raw material handling plant, coke oven stamp charge battery, sinter plant, thin slab caster-direct rolling unit, cold rolling mill and silicon mill. A new blast furnace and a steel melting shop also will be added as part of the expansion project.

A new railway line from Dumertra station to RSP for transport of raw materials and finished goods is being laid to aid logistics. The project is being undertaken by South Eastern Railways on a cost-deposit basis. The work is expected to relieve the congestion at Bondamunda Yard.

Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), one of the top three steel producers in the country, as an organization under the Ministry of Steel, already has four more integrated steel plants at Durgapur and Burnpur in (West Bengal), Bhilai (Chhattisgarh) and Bokaro (Jharkhand). The RSP Expansion project will enhance SAIL as a strategic player in the Indian steel landscape as well as the country’s expansion story.