Naveen Patnaik inaugurates ferrochrome, titanium units

The 55,000 tonne per annum plant is claimed to be the first greenfield ferrochrome project of Tata Steel in the country

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday inaugurated two major industrial projects near Gopalpur in south Odisha. The projects are a ferrochrome plant of Tata Steel built at a cost of Rs 542 crore and a high-titanium slag making unit of Kolkata based Saraf Agency set up with an investment of Rs 350 crore.

The 55,000 tonne per annum ferrochrome plant is claimed to be the first greenfield ferrochrome project of Tata Steel in the country. It has come up in the Gopalpur industrial park, for which Tata Steel is the anchor developer.

Besides the new unit at Gopalpur, Tata Steel has two other ferrochrome plants in the state- a 65,000 TPA plant at Bamnipal in Keonjhar district and the other at Athagarh in Cuttack district of 55,000 TPA capacity under the management of its subsidiary T S Alloys. Both the units were acquired by the steel behemoth earlier.

"With the commissioning of the ferrochrome plant, the Gopalpur industrial park should see lot more investors coming forward to set up industries here, adding to the industrial progress of the region", said TV Narendran, managing director, Tata Steel (India and South East Asia).

Tata Steel is developing the industrial park and a multi-product Special Economic Zone (SEZ) on 2970 acres of land, which it had acquired in 1996 for setting up of a steel plant.

"The ferrochrome plant at Gopalpur uses state-of-the-art pollution control equipment and technology. It has 100 per cent water harvesting facility that caters to most of the water needs of the plant. Also, it is the first plant in India to use briquetting method of chrome ore fines agglomeration", said Arun Misra, vice-president, project Gopalpur & managing director, Tata Steel Special Economic Zone Ltd. Around 350 persons were get employment directly and indirectly in the project.

Similarly, the high-titanium slag plant of 36,000 tonne per annum is established in the Titanium dioxide park near Takiria Berhampur by Saraf Agency. The Kolkata based firm is developing a Special Economic Zone on 260 acres of land there. The titanium slag, made from ilmenite, a rare earth product, would be exported to countries like Japan, China, UK etc. The plant will also produce 20,000 tonne per annum pig iron as its bye-product.

The company has plans to add titanium dioxide, Titanium ferroalloys and scandium plants in the next two years with an investment of Rs 2000-crore.

The company has applied for land lease on Ganjam coast for extracting rare earths found in the region. Presently, the company procures the raw material ilmenite from the Indian Rare Earths Limited (IREL) located nearby.