India’s Shyam Metalics and Energy Limited (SMEL) has commissioned a new blast furnace and a sinter plant is its Jamuria steel mill in the eastern state of West Bengal, completing a $71 million expansion project, according to a company statement on Thursday, November 7.
The new blast furnace has a capacity of 0.77 million mt per year and features a 550 cubic meter volume with three top-fired stoves and modern coal dust injection technology. The company expects this addition to improve its margins by approximately INR 700/mt ($8/mt).
Alongside the blast furnace, SMEL has launched a 1.11 million mt per year capacity sinter plant designed to process iron ore fines into blast furnace feedstock. The facility includes an 18 MW Top Gas Pressure Recovery Turbine, which provides 10 percent additional energy recovery, and an evaporative cooling system that reduces water and power usage by 20 percent compared to conventional systems, the company said in the statement.
The company operates seven manufacturing plants across India - three in West Bengal, and one each in Odisha, Indore, Kharagpur and Jharkhand. The aggregate installed metal production capacity of the plants is 13.51 million mt per year.