Bhubaneswar, October 21: The 11th edition of the Steel Markets Conference being organised by India’s largest B2B e-commerce company, mjunction services limited, kicked off here today. This two-day event is being organised in Bhubaneswar for the first time. The theme of this year’s conference is “Connecting the Dots for a Sustainable Future,” with special focus on Iron ore, Pellets, Scrap and DRI sectors. At the inaugural session today, speakers highlighted the growing importance of Odisha as the country’s steel manufacturing hub.
Delivering the welcome address, MD of mjunction Mr Vinaya Varma said, “Odisha accounts for 25% of the India’s total steel production and is fast emerging as the ‘steel Hub’ of India.” Vinaya Varma, MD & CEO, mjunction services limited said at the inaugural session.
Tata Steel has recently commissioned India’s largest blast furnace at its Kalinganagar facility in Odisha, Rajiv Kumar, VP, Operations, Tata Steel Kalinganagar, said, adding that the facility is extensively implementing robotics, data and vision analytics to improve safety and productivity.
According to Manish Singla, Practice Leader, Energy and Commodities, Consulting, CRISIL, of the 120 million tons of steel capacity coming up in the country, majority is coming up in Odisha. Also, 66% of this capacity is through the Blast Furnace route, he said. Significant capacity addition is happening after years of consumption growth outpacing steel production growth, and this has led to capacity utilisation levels going up, he said.
Not only finished steel, Odisha is also taking major strides in iron ore supplies. Odisha Mining Corp has emerged as the biggest iron ore dispatching company in the country surpassing NMDC Ltd as of now, supplying 23 million tons till September of the current financial year, Vivek Nishant Nath, GM (Sales and Marketing), OMC Ltd said. For full year FY25, OMC is planning to dispatch more than 40 million tons.
The conference will conclude tomorrow with some key sessions on logistics infrastructure and sourcing strategies.
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