Vizag Steel Plant
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Vizag Steel | |
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| Type | Public Sector |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1971 |
| Headquarters |  Visakhapatnam, India |
| Key people | Y S S Rao, CMD |
| Industry | Steel |
| Products | Plain Rounds,Squares,Flats,Billets,Pig Iron,Plain Wire Rods In Coils I,Plain Wire Rods In Coils II |
| Revenue |  USD 1.36 billion |
| Slogan | Pride of Steel |
| Website | http://www.vizagsteel.com/ |
Vizag Steel, also known as Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, is a steel company based in the outskirts of Visakhapatnam, India. Its main plant is located in 26 kilometers from Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, it is among India's premier steel mills in India.It has also been conferred the Mini Ratna status.Its vision - Infrastructuring India.
Vizag Steel bagged the first prize in Energy Conservation constituted by Ministry Of Power, Government Of India, consecutively for the last two years primarily due to it focus on energy conservation, cost reduction and waste utilization. Vizag Steel Plant today is among the lowest cost steel producers in the world. The Visakhapatnam Steel Plant has been awarded the Safety Innovation Award - 2006 by the Institution Of Engineers for its "outstanding contributions in the field and adoption of the best and the most innovative safety practices".The plant was awarded the Prime Minister's trophy for the best steel plant in the country, for the year 2002-2003.
VSP added another feather to its cap by bagging Six, Govt. Of India, Vishwakarma Rashtriya Puraskar (VRP) Awards at national level out of total number of 28 awards announced by Ministry Of Labour, Government Of India.
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[edit] Political History
THE Visakhapatnam steel plant is the realisation of late Tenneti Viswanadham's dream as he had led the agitation for the steel plant during the late sixties. He coined the slogan - Visakha Ukku (steel), Andhrula Hakku (right)" ( in English - Visakha Steel plant is the Right of Andhra people) . The foundation stone for the plant had been laid by Indira Gandhi in 1971. But it was Rajiv Gandhi who took up the construction of the plant after the establisment of Rastriya Ispat Nigam Ltd as a seperate entity under the Ministry Of Steel.
[edit] Functional History
The Visakhapatnam Steel Plant was designed way back in late 1960s but by the time its chief Concultant's - MN Dastur & Company - report and revised reports were accepted in 1984 to start construction, it had become the most expensive steel plant ever to be constructed, deisigned to produce about 3 MT (Million Tonnes) of processed Steel per Year.
Its efficiency Model was designed after The Pohang Steel Plant in Korea. The Visakhapatnam Steel Plant is the first ever shore based Steel plant in India, and outside the traditional Coal belts of Dhanbad - Jamshedpur areas.
[edit] Location
Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) is a steel manufacturing plant in India that has come up at 26 kilometers south of Visakhapatnam of Andhra Pradesh.
The Visakhpatnam Steel Plant is located on a sprawling 25,000 acres of lush green, mostly thickly forested land about 35 Miles (approxly 45 Kms) South SOuth-East of the City of Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, India.
Its nearest railhead is the little hamlet of Duvvada. The nearest Bigger railhead is the famous, beautiful Town of Anakapalli.
However, not all trains stop at either stations. Therefore, the best bet is to alight/embark at the Junction Station of the City of Visakhapatnam itself and travel by road for about an hour-and-a-half.
Several jungle hamlets were taken over by the Government of India in acquiring land for the project and the residents were rehabilitated nearby. Chief of these are Pedda Gantyada, Chinna Gantyada, Dibbapalem, Balacheruvu, Paravada, and Desapatruni Palem.
The Steel plant and the Township both are bounded on the North by the National Highway 5 (NH5) and the Great Sea Bay of Bengal on the South.
The Steel Plant also has a Captive, private beach at the Hamlet of Gangavaram, that is designed to be converted into a port for the plant's prime coking coal supplies from Australia.
[edit] Ukkunagaram Township
The beautiful and well planned township for the employees of the plant is called UKKUNAGARAM (Ukku is Telugu for Steel, Nagaram is Telugu for Town).
The design of the Township itself is state-of-the-art. The designers followed the Roman Circular design for the Layout of homes and roads to keep the distances equal between any two points within the township.
There are 12 sectors in the Township, oldest of them being sectors 1,2 and 3, and Sector 7 which is the exclusive domain of the directors and the chairman's homes. Other sectors came into being as the plant's staffing matured. On the average, each sectore consists of about 300 housing units, which vary from multi-storied quarters (3 floors) to Single family homes. There are also bunglows exclusively for the Directors of the Plant.
Sector 1 used to house the Russians who came to erect and commission the first Blast furnace "Godavari", The RMHP, Sinter, and Coke Oven Batteries I & II.
The Beauty of the Township is that it sits in the cradle of the unspoilt forest belt starting at the Valleys of Aracu through Yelamanchili to Narsipatnam
The township comes under the mandate of the Town Administration. The continued afforestation efforts of the managment has ensured a green and pollution free environment and thereby creating a unique eco-system in itself. The township has well kept roads, regulated traffic. The township also has all market places, parks, clubs, sports facilities exclusively for the employees and their dependents.
Some of the prominent schools in the township are
1. The Kendriya Vidyala Central School (KV) in Sector 1
2. The DAV Public School in Sector 3
3. Delhi Public School (DPS) in Sector 8
4. De Paul School in Sector 9
5. Jyothi Bala Vihar (Kindergarten)
Last but not the least is the vistas that the Big Kanithi Balancing reservoir offers. This large mass of water reservoir is for the captive consumption of the plant and the township alike and sits between the Township and the NH5. It draws its water from a special canal built exclusively for it from the River Yeleru, a tributary of the Great river Godavari.
The Road that leads from the plant plaza maingate into the township actually travels ahead as a bypass to the busy NH5 and skips Anakapalli directly to Yelamanchili and Tuni, cutting almost 20 miles on the road route from Visakhapatnam to Vijayawada.
[edit] About the Plant
The Plant is spread across a sprawling 19,000 acres of which only 5,000 acres are used so far. The rest is still pristine shrub forest land.
The company also has a blast furnace grade limestone captive mine at Jaggayapeta,a captive mine for dolomite at Madharam, a manganese ore captive mine at Cheepurupalli. All the captive mines are located in the state of Andhra Pradesh. It has also got a mining lease for river sand in river Champavathi. The Plant has two main entrances - the first and the original Balacheruvu gate towards the satellite village of Gajuwaka, and the newer gate that opens to the Township and straight onto the NH5.
Coke ovens & Raw Material Handling plant (COBPP and RMHP)
The Coke Ovens of VSP are engineering feats by themselves. They are the tallest ovens metre constructed in the country. The Plant has 3 batteries of 7mtr. tall ovens with each battery consisting of 67 ovens. Another feature is the dry cooling of coke carried out by the inert gas nitrogen thus, reducing pollution considerably. Besides a bio-chemical plant separately undertakes the treatment of effluents. By-products like benzene, toluene, xylene, napthalene, coal tar, creosote oil, pitch, ammonium sulphate and benzol products are also recovered from the coke ovens gas. Benzene and toluene are produced through hydro refining and extractive distillation process, a unique technology. The benzene produced is of very high purity (99.93%). VSP produces, among other by-products, pushkala a prime fertilizer based on ammonium sulphate.
Sinter plant
Iron ore fines, coke breeze, limestone and dolomite along with recycled metallurgical wastes are converted into agglomerated mass at the sinter plant, which forms 80% of iron bearing charge in the blast furnace. The sinter plant comprises two sinter machines each having 312 square metres of grate area with a total production capacity of 5.256 million tonnes per annum.
Blast furnaces
VSP has two blast furnaces "Godavari" and "Krishna" with an effective volume of 3200 cu.m. each of which are the largest in the country. The blast furnace is charged with coke, iron ore and sinter from the top and produces about 5000 tonnes of molten iron per day. Its novel circular cast house with four tap holes ensures continuous tapping of hot metal. The annual production capacity of these Blast Furnaces is 3.4 million tonnes of liquid iron.
Steel melt shop & continuous casting
Three Top blown converters, each of 133 cu.m. volume, produce a total of 2.7 million tonnes of liquid steel per annum. This liquid steel thus produced is casted in six-4 strand bloom casters. A special feature in energy conservation is the collection of converter gas to be used as a fuel in the plant. The entire molten steel at VSP is continuously cast at the radial type continuous casting machines resulting in significant energy conservation and better quality steel. 100% Continuous casting on such a large scale has been conceived for the first time in India.
Rolling mills
The cast blooms from continuous casting department are heated and rolled in the three high speed and fully automated rolling mills namely
Light & Medium Merchant Mill (LMMM),
Wire Rod Mill (WRM I & II), and
Medium Merchant & Structural Mill (MMSM)
to produce various long products like Reinforcement bars, rounds, squares, flats, angles, channels, billets, wire rods etc. Technologies adopted at Rolling Mills include world-class Stelmor and Tempcore processes.
