Nagarnar Steel Plant Commissions Coke Oven Battery No.1

NL Correspondent
Nagarnar: NMDC's Nagarnar Steel Plant inched closer to its commissioning today when Shri Somnath Nandi, Director Technical, NMDC
commissioned Coke Battery No.1 in the presence of Shri. K Praveen Kumar, ED Incharge, Nagarnar Steel Plant and other senior officials.
The first batch of coke was discharged this afternoon paving the way for sequential commissioning of subsequent key units. Nagarnar Steel
Plant being a greenfield integrated steel plant, several major units need to be commissioned sequentially so that their interdependence can
be established smoothly. Battery No. 2 is due for commissioning in the next few days and the process will eventually culminate in the
commissioning of the Hot Strip Mill and Thin Slab Caster in the coming months.
Nagarnar Steel Plant aims to produce 2.89 million tonnes of high quality HR Coils, Plates and Sheets annually, using state of the art technology
and achieving the highest level of energy efficiency. Shri Sumit Deb, CMD, NMDC appreciating the collective effort described the development as
“an important day in the history of Nagarnar Steel Plant and a significant milestone in commissioning of 3 MTPA Integrated Steel Plant”. He
exhorted the Collective to, “put all-round sincere efforts as a team to achieve the final milestone of commissioning the Plant”. Commenting on the
achievement, Shri Somnath Nandi, Director Technical, NMDC said, “This is the first major step towards commissioning of the steel plant. Today's
development inspires confidence that we will soon fulfil the dream of a steel plant in Bastar.” Mr. Praveen Kumar, ED Incharge, Nagarnar Steel Plant
highlighted that these eco-friendly coke oven batteries will produce coking coal without releasing any toxic fumes. He referred to today's commission
as ‘a validation of the team's commitment' and expressed confidence that the steel plant commissioning will also follow soon hereafter. The annual
metallurgical coke production capacity of Nagarnar Steel Plant's Coke Oven Complex is 1.76 million tonnes, when fully operational. Constructed at
a cost of Rs.1978 crore, the Project executed by a consortium comprising of BEC (Bhilai), M/s Giprokoks (GPK) of Ukraine, M/s CUI and M/s
Concord.
The Coke Oven Complex consists of 2 batteries of which Battery No. 1 was commissioned yesterday. Each battery has 67 ovens
that are 7 metre tall and a Coke Dry Cooling Plants (CDCP) which will ensure dry quenching of coke using nitrogen. This effectively protects
against pollution and also helps in utilising the heat to generate power. When fully functional, Nagarnar Steel Plant has the capability to
generate in-house 80MW of power of its total requirement of about 296 MW.