IANS | 29 Feb, 2024
Public sector giants Coal India Limited (CIL) and Bharat Heavy
Electricals Limited (BHEL) on Wednesday signed a joint venture (JV)
agreement for setting up an ammonium nitrate plant based on surface coal
gasification technology, the Coal Ministry announced on Wednesday.
The
plant to come up in Odisha's Lakhanpur area of Mahanadi Coalfields
Limited, will initially produce 2,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate per
day.
The annual production is slated at 6.60 lakh tonnes which requires 1.3 million tonnes (mts) of coal.
The coal will be supplied by CIL.
BHEL will bring to the table indigenously developed pressurised fluidised bed gasification (PFBG) technology for this purpose.
The
synergy and partnership of the two corporate giants is a big step
towards National Coal Gasification Mission which facilitates utilisation
of chemical properties of coal, the Coal Ministry said.
Ammonium
nitrate is a major ingredient in manufacturing bulk explosives which CIL
uses in large quantities in its open-cast mining operations, a major
source of its coal production.
The upcoming plant's backward
integration would help in securing the raw material, reducing import
dependence of ammonium nitrate and promoting Atmanirbhar Bharat
Abhiyaan.
Coal Secretary Amrit Lal Meena said that with the commitment of CIL and BHEL, this project will be a role model.
"Gasification
is the highest priority area for the ministry of coal. In the next two
to three years there will be sufficient coal. All the possible support
required from the government is in place including financial support for
viable gap funding."
Debasish Nanda, Director (Business
Development) CIL and Jai Prakash Srivastava, Director (Engineering,
R&D) BHEL signed the joint venture agreement on behalf of respective
promoter companies.
CIL will pursue alternative uses of coal for
environment friendly ventures like coal gasification in future after
fulfilling the requirement of the power sector. SCG is a promising
technology that converts coal into valuable Syn gas.
On further processing, this produces synthetic natural gas that can be used as alternative natural gas.
Additionally,
it can be used as feedstock for downstream chemicals production which
are currently being imported and for power generation as well.
Projects
and Development India Limited, a Mini Ratna design engineering and
consultancy company has been assigned the work for preparing a detailed
feasibility report of the plant.
Physical possession of the land
is under progress and will be completed by September 2024 after which
construction activities will follow.
