Tata Steel has received the World Steel Association (worldsteel) Safety and Health Excellence Recognition 2024 for its online purging assistance model that eliminates the risk of explosion in gas cleaning plant (GCP) area of blast furnace. Tata Steel is one of the six steel producers globally and the only one from India to win this prestigious worldsteel recognition this year.  

For the worldsteel Safety and Health Excellence Recognition 2024, steel producers around the world were evaluated for delivering demonstrable improvements in safety and health under four broad categories - safety culture and leadership, occupational safety management, occupational health management, and process safety management.

Rajiv Mangal, Vice President, Safety, Health & Sustainability, Tata Steel, said, “Tata Steel accords the highest priority to the safety of its employees and stakeholders, and has been investing in latest technology and digital tools to ensure this. We are delighted that our efforts in this direction have been consistently recognised by worldsteel which further reaffirms our commitment to building a ‘zero harm’ company.”

Tata Steel’s new purging assistance model tracks real-time updates of the purging process through a set of remote-operated valves installed at strategic locations, and gas analysers installed at vents. A system of logic and interlocks has also been developed, enabling the operator to monitor and purge the entire gas line from the control room. This new model eliminates the risk of insufficient purging of the gas line due to the conventional manual tasks such as opening the nitrogen valve and taking gas measurements through vents.

In more specific terms, the model ensures zero high potential risk incident due to insufficient purging, around $215,000 savings per shutdown due to purging time reduction, a 50% reduction in purging time, and 100% safe shutdown and startup of the plant.

To achieve excellence in process safety management, Tata Steel has been leveraging digital technology to induce timely maintenance of Process Safety Critical Equipment, leading to reductions in failure of critical equipment. The Company has also established the Process Safety School of Excellence to improve the process safety competency of employees across all locations. 

Tata Steel was also awarded worldsteel Safety and Health Excellence Recognition 2023 for elevating safety standards within the steel industry.