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Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Coking coal to remain worry for Indian steel firms

Wednesday, 04 Jan 2012

Business Standard reported that as India is targeting steel capacity of 200 million tonnes by 2020, a major concern staring in the face of steelmakers is how to secure sustainable supply of coking coal.

As per report, Indian reserves of coking coal are less than 34 billion tonnes of which the share of prime grade is only 5.31 billion tonnes.

According to a study by ANZ Bank, India's import requirements of metallurgical coal will climb to 90 million tonne by 2015 from around 30 million tonne now. The import projection is based on the perception of the country’s steel production growing at an annual clip of 10%. As India's imports treble in the next four years, it will move ahead of Japan and China, now leading the group of importing countries. China is likely to import 70 million tonne in 2015.

As per report, all Indian steel majors are attempting to reduce coke consumption by adopting multi pronged strategies.

TATA Steel and SAIL are blending medium grade coking coal with the prime grade.

Some local steelmakers are stepping up coal dust injection in their BFs to bring down coke rate. The thumb rule is one kg of coal dust will replace an identical amount of coke, the making of which requires 1.4 kg of coal, in BF.

(Sourced from BS)

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