Mishap at Tata Steel’s Meramandali plant; 19 injured

A total of 19 employees were injured at a Tata Steel Ltd plant in Odisha's Meramandali Works in Dhenkanal after an accident at the BFPP2 power plant. The company has cited "escape of steam" as the reason for the mishap.

According to the company, the accident occurred at 1:00 pm (IST) on Tuesday during the course of the inspection work and affected a few people working at the site. The injured were immediately shifted to the Occupational Health Centre inside the plant premises and then to Cuttack for further treatment, as a precautionary measure, in the company's ambulance, accompanied by a doctor and paramedics, the company said.

"We are working closely with relevant authorities on the ground and have initiated an internal investigation to ascertain the cause of the accident. Safety remains our top priority and we're committed to learning from this incident. We will share updates as and when more details are available," the company said.

Tata Steel India’s overall capacity stands at 21.6 MnTPA, with operations at Jamshedpur and Gamharia in Jharkhand and Kalinganagar and Meramandali in Odisha. These include three major sites Jamshedpur (11 MnTPA), Kalinganagar (3 MnTPA), and Meramandali (5.6 MnTPA), all of which consume iron ore and coking coal in blast furnaces to produce steel.

Tata Steel's Meramandali plant is one of India's largest flat steel production plants, equipped with steelmaking and finishing facilities with a capacity of 5.6 MnTPA.

The data released via the company’s annual report shows Tata Steel Meramandali (‘TSM’) has produced hot metal during FY2022-23 of 4.60 MnT as against 4.59 MnT during FY2021-22, production of crude steel stood at 4.95 MnT in FY2022-23 as against 4.89 MnT in FY2021-22 and saleable steel production stood at 4.24 MnT in FY2022-23 as against 4.61 MnT in FY2021-22, up 8%.

The sales for FY23 stood at 4.63 MnT as against 4.70 MnT in FY2021-22, registering a marginal decrease over the previous year.

The Tata Steel stock surged 1.62% to 113 on the National Stock Exchange today. The stock has surged 4.8% in the past month and 13.43% in the past year.

For the year ended March 31, 2023, the consolidated revenue of the company was ₹2,43,353 crore, marginally lower compared to the previous year’s consolidated revenue of ₹2,43,959 crore. Both the consolidated EBITDA and profit for FY2022-23 were substantially lower compared to the previous year. In FY2022-23, the consolidated EBITDA was ₹32,698 crore compared ₹63,830 crore in the previous year, and consolidated profit in FY2022-23 was ₹8,075 crore, compared to ₹41,749 crore in the previous year. As per the company, the financial performance in FY23 was impacted by higher cost structure due to elevated energy and emission-related costs and raw material price volatility.