Indian state-run Steel Authority of India Limited’s (SAIL) Bokaro Steel Plant (BSP) will commence production of special weather-resistant steel used in the manufacture of shipping containers, a company statement said on Tuesday, January 24.
The company said that BSP has been granted a license by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) for production of weather-resistant structural steel grades WR-Fe 480A (general application for weather-resistant structural steel), WR-Fe 480B (low phosphorus micro-alloyed weather-resistant structural steel) and WR-Fe 490H (for container manufacturing) as per standards of IS 11587:1986.
The pandemic caused a huge shortage of shipping-grade containers worldwide and many containers were tied up at ports, storage facilities and vessels around the globe due to government restrictions mandating the covid crisis, the statement said.
Rising demand, port congestion and closed manufacturing operations worsened the shortage, subsequently increasing container freight rates immediately across the world as imposed by shipping lines. This had a brutal impact on India’s export-import supply chain as its main supplier was China and it required about 350,000 containers yearly.