The present paper reports a statistical analysis of the performance of the blast furnace number X at the Bhilai Steel Plant over a period of sixteen years with the special reference to the quality and consumption of sint-er. The variation in basicity and consumption of sinter, for the blast furnace data considered, is wide.The range of data covers high level to almost nil amount of raw limestone in the burden. Equations have been established relating blast furnace performance indices, viz. produc-tivity, carbon rate and slag volume, with independent parameters. The productivity depends largely on the fines content in iron ore lump. The charge weight is the most important parameter for carbon rate, followed by the blast
temperature . The findings seem to indicate that priority has to be given for elimination of raw fluxstone and fines from burden for improved furnace performance
