NMDC’s Nagarnar Steel Plant commissioned coke oven battery

Several major units need to be commissioned sequentially so that their interdependence can be established smoothly.

Battery No. 2 is due to be commissioned in the next few days and the process will eventually conclude with the commissioning of the Hot Strip Mill and Thin Slab Caster in the coming months.

Nagarnar Steel Plant aims to produce 2.89 million tonnes of high quality HR Coils, Pets and Sheets annually using state-of-the-art technology and to achieve the highest level of energy efficiency.

Sumit Deb, CMD, NMDC while appreciating the collective effort described the development as “an important day in the history of Nagarnar Steel Plant and a significant milestone in commissioning of 3 MTPA Integrated Steel Plant”.

He called for the collective to “make all sincere efforts as a team to achieve the final milestone of commissioning the plant”.

Commenting on the achievement, Somnath Nandy, Technical Director, NMDC said, “This is the first major step towards commissioning the steel plant. Today’s development inspires confidence that we will soon fulfill the dream of a steel plant in Bastar.”

Praveen Kumar, ED in-charge of Nagarnar Steel Plant said that these eco-friendly coke oven batteries will produce coking coal without releasing any toxic fumes. He referred to today’s commission as a ‘confirmation of the team’s commitment’ and expressed confidence that the steel plant would be operational soon thereafter.

The annual metallurgical coke production capacity of Nagarnar Steel Plant’s Coke Oven Complex is 1.76 million tonnes when fully operational.

Constructed at a cost of Rs 1978 crore, the project has been executed by a consortium of Ukraine’s BEC (Bhilai), Ziprock (GPK), CUI and Concorde.

The Coke Oven Complex has two batteries out of which Battery No. 1 was commissioned yesterday. Each battery consists of 67 ovens that are 7 meters long and a Coke Dry Cooling Plant (CDCP) which will ensure dry quenching of coke using nitrogen.

It effectively protects against pollution and also helps in using heat to generate electricity. When fully functioning, Nagarnar Steel Plant has the potential to generate 80 MW of electricity out of its total requirement of about 296 MW.

The by-product plant, an important unit which is internally linked to the coke oven, was also commissioned. This is an absolute prerequisite for starting a coke oven battery because all the toxic elements produced during the coke making process are captured, treated and commercialized by the byproduct plant.

This unit effectively assists in pollution free coke production by removing tar, naphthalene, sulfur and ammonia as by-products. Hutni is a technology provider from Czechoslovakia.