Gas supply to steel factories
An absurd front-page report on the subject was published in an English daily on 26th October, which was illogical and shortsighted. It seems that there is no technically qualified person in the Natural Gas sector management who has even some basic knowledge of Physics and the heating and rolling of steel materials! I am surprised by their idea; since for steel rolling mills this will only increase rolling costs and wastage of natural gas! Rolling temperature of steel sections varies from about 900deg.C to say 1100deg.C, depending on the chemical composition of the steel, and the stage of reduction and the section to be rolled.
To start the rolling operation, the heating furnace, with the steel billets, has to be heated for say three to four hours, to reach rolling temperature, depending on the furnace size and capacity; if the heating burners had no natural gas from 6am to 11pm, starting the furnace at 11pm, rolling can start say from 2am after midnight. After 6am no rolling will be possible, as gas to the burners will be shut off! The hot furnace with the steel billets or ingots inside will then only be cooling from 6am throughout the day. All the heat just will be wasted! The cost of rolling, and hence the finished product cost will go up!
The alternative is to stagger short rolling schedules for the mills in the area. Say for example, ten mills will roll continuously round the clock for say ten days, the other mills being shut. Then another group of ten mills will roll steel round the clock, and so on; so that the gas rationing is shared by all rolling mills by turn, without hampering their efficiency and fuel usage to an absurd extent, which will happen if illogical daily shutting down is enforced! Will the natural gas companies look into the matter in overall national interest in a sensible and rational manner to face the gas shortage?
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