The Central Marketing Organisation (CMO) of Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) this morning flagged off the first consignment of 1,000 tonnes of SAIL-TMT High Corrosion-Resistant (HCR) reinforcement bars for the prestigious Indo-Bangla ‘Maitree Super Thermal Power Project’ from Kolkata Port in a barge. The barge will offload the material at Bangladesh’s Mongla port, for transportation by road to the project site at Moidara village in Bagerhat district of Bangladesh.
The Maitree project is a 50:50 joint venture inked by Bangladesh Power Development Board and NTPC India for setting up of two 660 MW thermal power plants in Bagerhat district of Bangladesh by 2020 at an estimated cost of US$ 1.49 billion.
Responding to an enquiry floated by BHEL, which has been given the contract by the JV company Bangladesh-India Friendship Power Company (BIFPC) for engineering, procurement and construction work of the Maitree project, SAIL bagged an order for supply of 17,200 tonnes of corrosion-resistant thermo-mechanically treated (TMT) rebars in sizes 8mm to 36 mm in phase-1. Re-bars were produced at the three integrated steel plants of SAIL at Burnpur, Durgapur and Bhilai.
This is the first time that SAIL has utilised multimodal transport options for delivery of material to a project site. The SAIL-TMT rebars were first transported from the steel plants via rail and road to SAIL’s Durgapur Warehouse for packaging, then brought to the Kolkata Port by road, and finally loaded on to the barge.