India's plan to make CRGO steel indigenously to take off soon

[Skull and Bones]

NEW DELHI: India's plan to produce CRGO steel indigenously to meet demand from the power sector is set to take off soon on a public-private partnership with Tata Steel.

Cold Rolled GrainBSE Oriented (CRGO) steel is a critical input for the manufacturing of transformers which is key for generation, transmission and distribution of electricity to end-users.

Only five global steel makers have the technology to produce such steel, which India imports around USD 2 billion annually.

"The plan to produce CRGO has been with steel ministry for quite some time. National Metallurgical Laboratory(NML) and Tata Steel's proposal for development of CRGO steel in the country through a pilot plant setup at a cost of Rs 500 crore is set to take off soon," sources told PTI.

NML and Tata SteelBSE would set up a pilot plant having a capacity of 3-5 tonnes in Jamshedpur. The two will give Rs 170 crore each to the project and the balance is likely to be funded by the Steel Ministry for procuring plant equipment.

NML is the third in the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) family of 38 laboratories.

The Working Group on Steel Industry for 12th Five-Year Plan in its report had recommended inclusion of development of CRGO steel as a high value project of national importance.

It had also suggested a budgetary allocation of Rs 150 crore for research on CRGO development during the 12th Plan Period.

There are a couple of public sector companies, including JSW SteelBSE, that have already announced plans to produce CRGO through joint venture mode, but production from them will take some time to start. Public sector units - SAILBSE and RINL - have also evinced interest to venture into the area.

However, Steel Ministry's Empowered Committee (EC) for Research and Development, headed by the Secretary, said the joint ventures undertaken by Indian steel firms cannot ensure total technology transfer. Even if they do, it will cover only normal grades.

"Steel firms having the technology to develop CRGO are very reluctant to transfer that to India. EC, therefore, felt that development of the technology through indigenous sources through a pilot plant was a necessity," sources said.

According to Central Electricity Authority, transformer industry of the country has grown to a manufacturing capacity of 800-1000 GVA and during the 12th Plan period, an additional 94,000 MW generation capacity is targetted to be added.

Given these daunting requirements, the need for higher-capacity transformers is imminent. India's CRGO steel consumption thus would significantly increase from the current level of $ 2 billion, they added.

India's plan to make CRGO steel indigenously to take off soon - The Economic Times

Electrical steel, also called lamination steel, silicon electrical steel, silicon steel, relay steel or transformer steel, is specialty steel tailored to produce certain magnetic properties, such as a small hysteresis area (small energy dissipation per cycle, or low core loss) and high permeability.
The material is usually manufactured in the form of cold-rolled strips less than 2 mm thick. These strips are called laminations when stacked together to form a core. Once assembled, they form the laminated cores of transformers or the stator and rotor parts of electric motors. Laminations may be cut to their finished shape by a punch and die, or in smaller quantities may be cut by a laser, or by wire erosion.

Grain-oriented electrical steel usually has a silicon level of 3% (Si:11Fe). It is processed in such a way that the optimum properties are developed in the rolling direction, due to a tight control (proposed by Norman P. Goss) of the crystal orientation relative to the sheet. The magnetic flux density is increased by 30% in the coil rolling direction, although its magnetic saturation is decreased by 5%. It is used for the cores of power and distribution transformers, Cold Rolled Grain-oriented steel is often abbreviated to CRGO.
CRGO is usually supplied by the producing mills in coil form and it has to be cut into "laminations" which are then used to form a transformer core, which is an integral part of any transformer. Grain-oriented steel is used in large power and distribution transformers, and certain audio output transformers.

 

[perplexed]

with the acquisition of Corus turned a page for TATA steel... gave them whole lots of patents and R&D base I would say !!

 

[madooxno9]

with the acquisition of Corus turned a page for TATA steel... gave them whole lots of patents and R&D base I would say !!

The Price was high too 12 billion

 

[perplexed]

The Price was high too 12 billion

Price for a thing is never high unless you don't know how to take leverage out of it

 

[veekysingh]

grow India grow.

 

[madooxno9]

Price for a thing is never high unless you don't know how to take leverage out of it

Few days back i gave a presentation on TATA group and during my research i found out that TATA is investing huge amount of money in graphene coated steel and high grade of steel. It says they lacked some technical assistance but after the Corus buyout they are on track. And one of the most interesting part was that within 7 years TATA is planning to expand and make its total output to 100 million tonnes ,which at present is 23.8 million tonnes.