Steel industries turn out to be India's saviours amid oxygen short supply

Steel industries were never considered messiahs. Now they are.

A proposal cleared by the government on April 7, 2020, has turned out to be the lifeline for India during this time of acute shortage of oxygen. The unlikely source - steel plants - has turned out to be the saviour of thousands of lives.

More than a year ago, the central government, for the first time ever, decided to allow manufacturers of industrial oxygen to produce and sell the gas for medical use.

Now, as a direct result of that far sighted decision, 28 oxygen units located in major public and private sector steel plants are supplying around 1,500 metric tonnes of medical oxygen per day (MTPD) across the country, as per data by the Ministry of Steel.

The contribution by steel plants is vital as India’s total consumption is pegged at around 5,000 MTPD while its total production is estimated at around 7,287 MTPD. This means that since the breakout of the pandemic, steel plants alone have supplied 130,000 million tonnes (MT) of medical oxygen across the country.

“It was this decision taken last year through which oxygen diverted from steel plants like Rourkela, Bhilai and private sector units are now saving thousands of lives,” said Saket Tiku, president of the All India Industrial Gases Manufacturers’ Association.

Steel minister Dharmendra Pradhan has asked oxygen plants, which are part of these steel plants, to work 24x7 to supply uninterrupted medical oxygen. States like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh have reported a severe shortage of life-saving gas this month.

India recorded the highest daily case count ever by a country since the COVID breakout early this week adding 314,000 fresh cases with the death toll touching 2,104.

When the proposal was cleared, the share of industrial oxygen was 75 per cent of the total liquid oxygen produced in the country. This has come down to 15 per cent now. Following the surge in demand due to the rising COVID numbers, the government has now prohibited the supply of oxygen for industrial purposes by manufacturers and suppliers from April 22, except in nine key sectors.

Medical oxygen is high purity oxygen traditionally used for health treatments, in which no other forms of gases are allowed. On the other hand, industrial oxygen is used for combustion, oxidation, cutting and chemical reactions in industrial plants. To divert industrial oxygen for medical purposes, companies complete the purification process in oxygen plants within an industrial centre.

Oxygen is used for various purposes by the steel industry. This includes the primary steelmaking processes (basic oxygen furnace and electric arc furnace) and the secondary steelmaking processes. In addition to technical purposes like oxy lancing and scarfing of steel, gas is also used for the enrichment of blast air in the blast furnace iron making process.

According to the Steel Authority of India (Sail), the company has so far supplied 35,000 tonnes of liquid medical oxygen of 99.7 per cent purity for COVID relief from its steel plants at Bokaro (Jharkhand), Bhilai (Chhattisgarh), Rourkela (Odisha), Durgapur and Burnpur in West Bengal.

JSW Steel has said that the company is supplying oxygen for medical purposes as its priority and the supplies are ramped up to over 185 tonnes, with every effort being made to increase it further by its steel plants across the country.

Industry too has appreciated the decision to divert industrial oxygen for medical purposes. “It was the most crucial decision ever. It was game-changing for India. Earlier, about 70 per cent used to go for industrial purposes that have come down. On an all-India basis, out of 7,200 MTPD, around only 15 per cent is now going to industry,” said Siddharth Jain, director of Inox Air Products.

The nine industries that are exempted from the ban starting from April 22 include ampoules and vials, pharmaceuticals, petroleum refineries, steel plants, nuclear energy facilities, oxygen cylinder manufacturers, wastewater treatment plants and food and water purification and process industries, which require the uninterrupted operation of furnaces and processes.

Other industrial majors like Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) too are contributing to India’s need for more oxygen. IOC has started a free supply of 150 metric tonnes of oxygen to hospitals in Delhi, Haryana and Punjab, while BPCL will be diverting 100 metric tonnes produced at its refineries.