Tata Steel has started ferro chrome production at its recently commissioned facility at Gopalpur in the eastern state of Odisha. Ferro chrome has been produced by the briquetting plant at the Gopalpur ferro alloys complex. The briquetting units had begun production on January 23 this year.
Gopalpur houses the only greenfield ferro chrome production unit of Tata Steel. Chromite for this facility is sourced from the captive mines at Sukinda.
D B Sundara Ramam, Executive-in-Charge, ferro alloys & minerals division of Tata Steel said, “This marks the completion of the commissioning of the ferro-chrome plant. It also goes a long way in consolidating our footprint in Odisha and the long standing partnership with the state towards industrial progress of the region.”
As part of the anchor investment in Tata Steel’s Gopalpur industrial park, the Rs 542 crore ferro-chrome plant has an installed capacity of 55,000 tonne per annum (tpa). The plant was inaugurated on November 30, 2016 by chief minister Naveen Patnaik.
It is a unique environment-friendly plant with state-of-the-art pollution control equipment and technology such as the ETP (Effluent Treatment Plant) and STP (Sewage Treatment Plant). The plant has 100 per cent water harvesting facility that caters to most of the water needs of the plant. It has an indigenously built semi-closed hybrid furnace, which is first of its kind in India and components procured from all over the world to maintain high standards of quality and safety. Also, it is the first plant in India to use briquetting method of chrome ore fines agglomeration.
Besides the plant at Gopalpur, Tata Steel has two other ferro-chrome plants in Odisha- a 65,000 tpa plant at Bamnipal in Keonjhar district and the other at Athagarh in Cuttack district of 55,000 tpa capacity under the management of its subsidiary T S Alloys.
India’s total HC Ferro Chrome Installed Production Capacity is around 1.3 MnT per annum and Tata Steel aims to boost up their production by the next Financial Year to 0.5 MnT per annum (production from conversion agents included). As per the MMDR Act 2015 all merchant mining leases will expire in 2020 and all the merchant blocks will be put on auction after that. Tata Steel’s Sukinda Chrome mine was accorded merchant status, and this led to Tata Steel maximizing their chrome ore resource.
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