Government to look at gasification after block auctions

Coal Insights Bureau

After the auction of mines for commercial use, the government plans to look at technological innovations in coal gasification and different uses of coal.

Also, to give a push to coal gasification, Coal India would be issuing tenders for five more blocks for classification.

“We have been lagging behind and need to do much more. In fact, private sector should come forward to innovate and design new technologies for coal gasification so that the coal is not burned but gasified and that the abundant natural resource that is available in the country is fully utilised for the benefit of the country,” coal ministry additional secretary M Nagaraju said.

“In order to graduate to a gas-based economy by 2030, as declared by the Prime Minister, the country needs to gasify the coal,” V R Sharma, Managing Director, Jindal Steel and Power Ltd said.

Gasification of coal is the only solution to harness clean energy from high-ash content Indian coal, he said.

Not only gas for steel making, coal gasification technology can also be used to make naphtha, petrol and diesel and also olefins. While China has been producing such downstream products from coal since long, India hasn’t started yet, Sharma added.

By producing such downstream products, there could be potential foreign exchange of $9.4 billion by replacing Liquified Natural Gas with syngas produced from coal and by replacing coking coal for steel making, he said.

Sharma asked for a National Policy on coal gasification for faster and smoother implementations and have senior coal ministry officials dedicated for such gasification projects.

Also, GST compensation cess of `400 per ton can be waive to promote adoption of gafification, Sharma asked.

In order to graduate to a gasbased economy by 2030, as declared by the Prime Minister, the country needs to gasify the coal. V R Sharma, Managing Director, Jindal Steel and Power

JSPL’s gasification experience

JSPL first conceived a coal-gasification unit for steel making in 2007 and visited all major countries where such gasification projects existed and then decided upon the technology supplied by Lurgi AG of Germany to Sasol to be most suitable for high-ash coal found in India.

Construction of the project started in 2010 and got commissioned in 2014. JSPL is the only company in the world that is converting coal to gas for DRI (Direct Reduced Iron) applications to make steel.

Coal is converted to syngas with hydrogen to carbon monoxide ratio of 2:1. Carbon conversion is more than 95 percent and effective carbon utilisation for making DRI is about 72 percent.

JSPL’s process also provides several byproducts ammonia, sulphur and also several precious carbon value-chain items including naphtha.

JSPL has so far set up 7 gasification units. It buys coal from Coal India of ash content of 48-52 percent.

The coal is then washed and gasified giving 3,400 kcal of gas that goes into JSPL’s DRI plant.

JSPL is currently producing 225 tons of DRI per hour giving 200 tons of steel every hour. We intend to set up another DRI plant as we have surplus gas,” Sharma said.

JSPL is also using coke oven gas for DRI being the first plant in the world to try this route for steel making.