In view of skyrocketing demand for oxygen in the country due to a record surge in Covid-19 cases, public sector steel companies under the Ministry of Steel and private steel companies have aligned themselves to supply oxygen for medical use.

Given the high demand for oxygen in the country, steel plants require gaseous oxygen, primarily for steel making and for oxygen enrichment in blast furnaces, apart from some general purposes like lancing and gas cutting. Hence captive oxygen plants in Integrated Steel Plants are designed to produce primarily gaseous products of oxygen, nitrogen and argon and then routed through Pressure Reduction and Management System (PRMS) to meet the process need at the desired pressure.

Such plants can produce 5-6% maximum liquid oxygen (LOX) at the peak capacity, which is a highly pure product compared to industrial oxygen. Plants can only optimise LOX production by sacrificing some gaseous Oxygen and optimise process parameters.

The Ministry of Steel told the media that plants in both the public and private sector are striving hard to supply liquid oxygen to different states. The average delivery of Liquid Medical Oxygen by SAIL has been raised to more than 800 tonnes per day. Around 1150T of LMO was delivered on 23 April, and the quantity delivered yesterday was 960 Tonne.

Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL), in FY 20-21, had supplied 8,842 ton of LMO. This FY, from 13 April till today morning, more than 1,300 tonnes of medical oxygen has been dispatched. There has been an increase from 100 tonne to 140 tonne in the last three days. The first Oxygen Express had left the RINL Vizag steel plant site on 22 April, carrying 100 tonne of LMO to Maharashtra to meet medical emergencies of Covid patients.

The total daily Oxygen production capacity of steel plants is 2834 metric tonne (mt). In the steel sector, there are 33 oxygen plants (both with CPSEs and in Pvt), of which 29 are tapped regularly. As against 2,834 mt of daily LMO production capacity in the Steel Sector, the production of LMO is 3,474 mt, as reported on 24 April 2021.

This is higher than the LMO production capacity because most units have reduced nitrogen and argon production and only produce LMO. With all these efforts, 2894 tonnes were dispatched to different states on 24 April by steel plants in the public and private sector as against 1,500/1,700 tonne per day a week earlier.

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