SAIL chief calls for strategy to bring in coal securitisation

Stating that global steel production was heavily dependent on coal, Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) chairman, CS Verma said it was high time that Indian steel industry adopted a multi-pronged strategy to bring in coal securitisation.

At present, around 70 per cent of total production is driven by the critical input. In 2010, global steel production consumed as much s 761 MT of coking coal and Pulverised Coal Injection which accounted for around 13 per cent of total coal consumption worldwide.

He said going forward, the Indian steel industry would need to adopt a multi-pronged strategy to bring in coal securitisation which included reducing coal consumption in steel plants through modernisation which would increase the thermal efficiencies of the processes thus reducing coking coal consumption.

He also called for part replacement of costly and scarce coking coal by less costly and relatively easily available non coking coal primarily through increasing PCI (which replaces coke by non-coking coal thus reducing coking coal requirement) and adopting coke making technologies, which can use higher quantities of non-coking / semi coking coal.

He called for introduction of technologies like dry cleaned and agglomerated pre-compaction system (DAPS) which can allow usage of up to 30 per cent of semi / non coking coal in the conventional top charged batteries.

Verma pointed out that Finex technology for production of molten iron ore fines and non-coking coal, completely eliminated the need for coke making, which could use iron ore fines and non-coking coal, for production of high quality iron.