“We are on a growth spree, and we look forward to continued support from our customers”

Over the past four decades, Danieli Corus has been serving the iron & steel industry with its refractories for Blast Furnace ironmaking that set new standards of excellence.

The following is an edited excerpt from the interview with Subrat Mishra, MD, Danieli Corus India, which appears in Iron & Steel Review’s March issue.

I would like to congratulate you for setting up a graphite refractory plant to manufacture refractories in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. Could you tell us something more about this plant for our readers?

Thank you! As a technology organisation for the iron & steel industry, we have been engaged in the design, supply and services of refractory for Blast Furnace ironmaking for more than four decades now.

Under the “Make in India” initiative and with an aim to serve our customers in a seamless manner, we have decided to integrate vertically in the supply chain by adding manufacturing of refractory at our new works. So, it would be an end-to-end solution for our customers in India.

We are setting up this unit in the state of Odisha, and we expect it to be operational by the end of this calendar year. We already have the order intake to be supplied from this unit. Initially, it is intended to meet the captive demand and later cater to the requirement of the Indian industry. We are already in discussions with some of the prospective buyers for orders to be delivered in the second half of 2024.

This new unit being true to its name, i.e. “Danieli Corus Refractory Solutions Pvt. Ltd.”, will not only carry out the manufacturing of refractory but also cater to various refractory-related services in the ironmaking area with a dedicated set of resources in terms of skilled manpower and tools. Some examples of services are health study & recommendation, refractory application, campaign extension, hot and cold repairs, etc. This unit will also house a laboratory for all QA/QC requirements.

We are in discussion with customers in India for the long-term association for such supplies and services.

Since the present government is keen on the “Make in India” policy, what percentage of import substitution are you planning?

We, at Danieli Corus, have been part of various “Make in India” forums and conclaves. We are committed to supporting this initiative. Over the last two years, we spent a considerable amount of our resources on developing the supply chain partners. We already have a large manufacturing unit from our Danieli group in Chennai, and further to that, we are opening this new refractory unit under Danieli Corus. We are also constantly upgrading and updating our supply chain partners. Our aim is to maximise the Indian content by the bid. The aim is nearly 100% import substitution, but this will also need the necessary support from our customers.

Danieli Corus is a leader in tailor-made solutions in India for the steel industry. Could you throw some light on this?

“FIT-FOR-PURPOSE” is our mantra, and we at Danieli Corus, with a set of experienced engineers with vast experience in retrofits and customisations, endeavour to provide tailor-made solutions for our customers to meet the exact requirement. With over four decades of providing technology solutions to the iron & steel industry, we have a complete array of technology to choose from, be it the type of furnace linings or type of stoves or the type of gas cleaning systems or the BOF vessel design in an existing shop.

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Iron & Steel Performance for January 2023

The performance of the steel sector during April-January, FY’23 has been encouraging. The cumulative production of Crude Steel at 103.18 Million Tonnes (MT), Finished Steel at 98.26 MT and consumption of Finished Steel at 96.38 MT during April-January, FY’23 have exceeded their respective levels achieved over the corresponding period of not only the COVID-affected last two years but also pre-COVID years as well.

Production and Consumption Scenario

In January 2023, production of crude steel increased by 1.0% over December 2022. During the month under review, production and consumption of finished steel grew by 0.6% and 1.1%, respectively, over December 2022.

Export-Import Scenario

During January 2023, exports of finished steel rose by 33.0%, whereas imports declined by 8.7% from December 2022. India was a net importer of finished steel in January 2023.

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MAN Industries (India) Ltd. Receives New Export Order

Man Industries (India) Limited, one of India’s leading large-diameter pipe manufacturing companies, has bagged new export order of approximately Rs. 1,300 Crores for the supply of API high-grade large-diameter carbon steel pipes along with the coating.

With this recent announcement, the unexecuted order book now stands at approximately Rs. 2,000 Crores to be executed in 6 to 8 months. This new order showcases a strong mounting of the business environment and the trust that customers have in Man Industries’ state-of-the-art technologies, industry expertise and execution capabilities.

Rameshchandra Mansukhani, Chairman of Man Industries (India) Limited, said, “Winning this export order has given us an opportunity to implement decades of our experience and contribute to the country’s economic growth. With the support of our well-qualified employees, we aim to deliver the order within the timeline and further strengthen our position in the competitive market space.”

SMS group Wins a Modernisation Contract from SULB

SMS group has been awarded a contract by Bahrain’s SULB Company BSC for the modernisation of the 130 Tonne electric arc furnace (EAF) and the four-strand continuous caster.

The main motivation for this project is to increase the safety and to enhance the efficiency and productivity. That will make ultimately lead to an upgraded quality of the products possible.

As part of the EAF modernisation, a CONDOOR^® slag door is to install. The aim of the upgrade is to improve the furnace seal and, thus, to increase productivity. The installation of the CONDOOR^® slag door enhances safety for the operating personnel as the slag cleaning of the breast is performed automatically. The slag removal by the forklift is no longer required. The modernisation reduces specific energy consumption and increases production yield. Moreover, the iron oxide content in the slag is significantly reduced.

The four-strand continuous caster is designed for the production of six section sizes. The modernisation goal is to increase casting speeds and productivity through additional cooling and strand support in the upper segments. The modernisation scope includes the rebuild of segment 1 for bloom and beam blank sections, including a new spray cooling system, water deflectors, a new hydraulic system and an expanded steam extraction system. This caster modernisation provides SULB with more production flexibility and, thus, the ability to respond more effectively to market demand.

Ravi Singh, Chief Executive Officer of SULB Company, said, “We chose SMS group because we trust SMS’ leading technology and their excellent team. We have a long-standing and good partnership. At SULB, we focus on environmental steel production, and SMS’ know-how and equipment have helped us and will continue to help us to constantly improve our quality requirements, increase our productivity and environmental sustainability.”

The start of production is planned for 2024.