Manganese India

INDIAN FERRO ALLOY INDUSTRY - PRESENT STATUS AND FUTURE OUTLOOK

C.N. Harman

Director (Technical) & N.S.S.Rama Rao, Deputy General Manager (Production) FACOR Alloys Limited Shreeramnagar-535 101, Dist.Vizianagaram. A.P. e-mail: facoralloys@facorgroup.in ABSTRACT

Steel is the most versatile material, which has made the progress in every aspect on this earth possible. There are hundreds of varieties of steel because for each application it has to be made with specific properties to get the most optimum usage. Though the basic constituent of steel is iron, it is the proportion of other elements in it, which gives each type of steel certain specific properties. These elements are added in liquid iron in the form of Ferro alloys to get the desired composition and properties. Thus, Ferro alloys are important additives in the production of steel and Ferro Alloys industry is vitally linked for its growth and development to that of the Steel Industry. There are two major groups of alloys. 1. Bulk alloys consisting of ferro alloys of Manganese, Chromium, Nickel and Silicon which are added in larger proportion to steels and are made by carbo thermal reduction in submerged arc electric furnaces(SAF). A schematic diagram of a submerged electric arc furnace is given in Annexure 1. 2. Noble ferro alloys which are used in much smaller proportion in special and alloy steels for addition of vanadium, molybdenum, Tungsten, Zirconium, Titanium, Boron, Tantalium, Magnesium Silicon and extra Low Carbon Ferro Chrome etc. These are generally made by alumino thermic or silico thermic reduction processes. In this paper, an attempt is made to discuss on (a) Industry’s profile and expansion of the bulk Ferro Alloys industry in a phased manner. (b) Current status of the industry with production level and extent of imports and exports of different Ferro Alloys, (c) Availability of quality inputs (d) Review of the technology adopted and (e) Challenges and opportunities in the Ferro Alloy...