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| CIL to establish urea & nitrate unit at Talcher |
| BS Reporter / Kolkata Mar 25, 2010, 01:04 IST |
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Coal India (CIL), GAIL and Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers (RCF) will come together to establish a project for producing urea and ammonium nitrate at Talcher, Orissa.
CIL has earmarked about 5.5 million tonnes of raw coal for the scheme; once washed, this will come down to approximately 3.7 mt of coal, with less than 30 per cent ash content. Subsequently, GAIL is to gasify the fuel to produce urea and ammonium nitrate.
“The exact investment figures have not been fixed, as the technology that will be utilised to produce urea and ammonium nitrate is still being studied. But, an estimated few thousand crores are likely to be spent,” said CIL chairman Partha S Bhattacharyya.
Speaking at an event organised by the Merchants Chamber of Commerce, he explained the ownership pattern of the proposed joint venture was likely to be 33 per cent each for the three companies involved. However, he did not give a time line for the execution of the venture.
“The joint venture (JV) has been mandated to produce a sizable amount of urea, as well as 20-30 per cent of the annual ammonium nitrate requirement of CIL,” Bhattacharyya added. Currently, the coal miner spends up to Rs 1,500 crore annually for procuring about 350,000 tonnes of explosives, in which ammonium nitrate is a major constituent. Thus, this project was likely to allow CIL to make significant savings on explosives.
Moreover, the JV is expected to revive the Talcher unit of the Fertilizer Corporation of India, as the project is expected to undertaken there. Apart from easy access to coal, the Talcher unit has other infrastructural advantages, including a coal gasification plant, a heavy water plant and an urea plant already in place.
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