Rashtriya Ispat Nigam (RINL) is planning to commission its steel plant in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, by September 2014.

The project, with 6.3 million tpa, will be completed at a cost of Rs 12,500 crore. The company has commissioned two rolling mills - a special bar mill and structural mill. The blast furnace-3, steel melting shop-2, and converter have been commissioned along with continuous casting machines and sinter plant three. The thermal power units have also been commissioned along with water, power and utility systems.

Pursuant to commissioning the expansion of the plant, the unit will take around one year for production to reach full steam.

Blast furnace-1 is undergoing capital repairs and is expected to be completed by the end of this month. Once this is completed, blast furnace-2 has to be taken down for capital repairs. This will take three to four months. Out of the three blast furnaces in place,  one will undergo capital repairs. Once all three are functional, the full production of liquid steel capacity is likely to be started from the Visakhapatnam steel plant.

The capital repairs and modernisation will result in an increase in capacity to 7.3 million tpa.

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