Country’s leading steel maker Tata Steel which is planning to start finished steel production at its Kalinganagar plant by December this year will begin feeding coking coal to its coke oven battery on 19 th of this month. The plant had initiated heating of the battery in the second week of May and is ready to take coking coal.
“ We are planning to start finished steel production from December this year and our coke oven which is being heated since mid-May is ready for use. We’ll start feeding coking coal in the oven from 19th of this month and this is a major milestone for our project” said Mr Rajeev Kumar, Vice-President (operations), Tata Steel ltd.
Coking coal when heated in the coke oven in the absence of oxygen, the volatile components is driven off and is converted into coke which is used in the blast furnace along with iron ore for steelmaking.
In the first phase the plant will have 3 mtpa capacity which will be increased to 6 mtpa by 2019. The company official said that along with the first phase work we have also completed almost 25% wok of the second phase. He said the company has obtained some statutory clearances for the project and is waiting to get few other clearances.
Tata Steel has signed an MoU with the government of Odisha for setting up the project on November 2004 with an investment of INR 15,400 crore. But due to heavy agitation by the local people which even led to police firing in January, 2006 claiming lives of 14 local tribals, the project work could not be taken up till 2010. Due to this delay the cost of the project has now gone up to INR 25,164 crore out of which the company has invested about 2000 crore so far.
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