The largest B2B e-commerce company in India, Mjunction Services Limited, organized the 11th edition of the Steel Markets Conference, which got underway in Bhubaneswar. For the first time, this two-day event was being held in Bhubaneswar. This year’s conference subject was “Connecting the Dots for a Sustainable Future,” with a particular emphasis on the DRI, iron ore, pellets, and scrap industries. Speakers at the first session emphasized Odisha’s increasing significance as the nation’s center for steel production.

Mr. Vinaya Varma, MD and CEO of Mjunction Services Limited gave the welcome speech at the first session. He stated that Odisha accounts for 25% of India’s total steel production and is fast emerging as the ‘steel Hub’ of India.

The largest blast furnace in India was recently put into service at Tata Steel’s Kalinganagar facility in Odisha, according to Rajiv Kumar, VP, of Operations, Tata Steel Kalinganagar. The facility is also heavily utilizing robotics, data, and image analytics to increase efficiency and safety.

“Of the 120 million tons of steel capacity coming up in the country, the majority is coming up in Odisha. Additionally, he stated that the blast furnace pathway accounts for 66% of this capacity. After years of consumption growth exceeding expansion in steel production, there is now a significant increase in capacity, which has raised capacity utilization levels” said Manish Singla, Practice Leader, Energy and Commodities, Consulting, CRISIL.

In addition to completed steel, Odisha is making significant progress in its supply of iron ore. With 23 million tons supplied till September of the current fiscal year, Odisha Mining Corp has surpassed NMDC Ltd as the nation’s largest iron ore dispatching business, according to Vivek Nishant Nath, GM (Sales and Marketing), OMC Ltd.OMC plans to ship over 40 million tons for the entire year FY25.

Key seminars on sourcing tactics and logistics infrastructure wrapped up the conference.

Priyanka Dutta