Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP), in Rourkela, Odisha is the first integrated steel plant in the public sector of India. It was created with the collaboration of West Germany with an installed capacity of 1 million tons in the sixties. It is operated by the steel authority of India.
German metallurgical companies Mannesmann, Krupp, Demag, Siemens and the Austrian company Voestalpine supplied machinery and consultancy to the plant, among others. Rourkela Steel Plant was the first steel plant in Asia to use the LD (Linz-Donawitz) steelmaking process. Rourkela Steel Plant has an associated fertilizer plant that produces nitrogen fertilizers using ammonia raw materials (from its coke oven plant). On February 3, 1959, then-president Rajendra Prasad inaugurated the first RSP blast furnace called 'Parvati' when the company became known as Hindustan Steel Limited (HSL). Subsequently, the RSP became a unit of the Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL).
Recently, on April 1, 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated a project to modernize and expand Rs 12,000 crores at the Rourkela Steel Plant. Currently, RSP has the capacity to produce 4.5 million tons of hot metal, 4.2 million tons of crude steel and 3.9 million tons of marketable steel.
The capacity of the Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) is expected to increase to 10.8 MTPA by 2025. Ashwini Kumar took over as CEO of Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) in 2016.
The RSP has many first to its credit. It is the first plant in Asia to adopt the LD process for energy efficiency of steelmaking and the first SAIL integrated steelmaker to adopt the cost-effective continuous casting process focused on quality to process 100% of the steel produced. The plant has also adopted, for the first time in India, the external desulfurization of the hot metal by the process of injection of calcium carbide. RSP is one of the unique units under the SAIL umbrella with a wide variety of special steels.
After that RSP was created with the help of German collaboration. Subsequently, its steelmaking capacity increased to 2 million tons and added many units to the facility.
During the 1970s a pipe plant and a special plate were created for the production of explosive remnants and steel plates for defense needs. NSPCL, the joint venture of NTPC Limited and SAIL, created a captive power plant with 120 MW capacity to be self-sufficient.
Rourkela Steel Plant carried out a modernization program in 1988 with a disbursement of INR 4500 crores. This modernized the raw material supply process, new oxygen plant, improved techniques in blast furnaces, sale of dolomite plant, foundry house, slag granulation plant, supply of raw material sintering plants and handling plants Coal and others. After the modernization, RSP became the first SAIL plant to adopt the continuous casting route for all its hot metal production. It is also the first steel plant in India that has adopted the external desulfurization of hot metal by the process of injection of calcium carbide.
Steel Authority of India plans to invest for its expansion capacity at its main plants. Thus Rourkela steel plant in modernization and expansion project in the process.
• 1964: The Fertilizer Plant was created in 1964 in order to use the waste from the steel plant and the reuse of chemicals.
• 1970: Pipe Plant and Special Plate Plant was established for the production of steel pipes and plates for defense requirements.
• 1988: The modernization of the RSP is started to produce qualitative materials and establish its importance in the world market.
• 1998: The modernization program with an expenditure of INR 4500 crores.
• 2010: RSP-SAIL plans to expand its capacity in its current 2.2 MT to 4.5 MT of production.
• 2013: Rourkela's steel plant unveiled the largest kiln called "DURGA", with a usable volume of 4060 cubic meters with a production capacity of 8000 tonnes of hot metal per day, thus increasing its production capacity 2.2 MT to 4.5 MT.
• 2015: Rourkela's steel plant has created a 1 MW photovoltaic (PV) solar power plant at a cost of Rs 6.68 million rupees, which is expected to generate 1.47 billion solar energy units per year .
It is also installing other facilities for the production of green energy. Two photovoltaic solar power generation systems have already been installed on the roof of 5 KW and another seven are in the pipeline. It is also in the process of establishing a 15 MW hydroelectric project at the bottom of Mandira Dam in collaboration with GEDCOL.