Jindal Steel arm setting up gas-based DRI steel plant in Bolivia

Jindal Steel & Power Ltd is setting up a 2.52 million tonnes per annum steel plant in Bolivia, South America. Jindal Steel Bolivia (JSB), a subsidiary of the company, will build the natural-gas-based steel mill, which will use the Midrex direct reduced iron (DRI) technology.

Jindal Steel signed the contract for building the new plant at EL-Mutun, Puerto Suarez, in Bolivia, on 30 March, the company said in a stock market filing.

Jindal said its upcoming Bolivian facility, to be called Naveen Ultra Mega Mod DRI, would be the largest single commercial unit in the world using the direct reduction technology.

The project will have the innovative Midrex shaft furnace facility and will have the flexibility to produce both quality hot DRI and hot briquetted iron for use in a new proposed greenfield meltshop, it said.

The new plant has contracted iron ore and pellet supplies with JSB's own EI Mutun iron ore reserves in Bolivia, where JSB is also installing a pellet plant and a steel making facility.

The Naveen Ultra Mega Mod plant will be capable of producing more than the rated capacity - up to 2.70 million tonnes per year - depending upon the quality of inputs, operating parameters and skill of the workforce, the release said.

Jindal Steel uses the direct reduction steel making technology at its 1.8 million tonne capacity plant at Angul, in Odisha as also Jindal's Oman joint venture - Jindal Shadeed Iron & Steel.