Collaborative Research Required Between Coal, Power & Steel Sectors

Coal is a commodity which drives an economy and the steel industry is a little worried that if the first preference of supply of coal, especially coking coal, should go to the power sector, and not the steel industry.

Steel can be purchased. But power cannot be, reminded Subrata Mitra, Joint Managing Director, M N Dastur & Co (P) Ltd, while speaking at the 12th Indian Coal Markets Conference, which was organised by mjunction services limited recently.

Endorsing that this was a vast subject, Mitra said steel in particular demands coal and its scarcity is a huge hindrance to its development. Because, he emphasised, the steel industry has to grow if the country has to grow.

It is well-know by now that India has a target to take its crude steel production to 300 mt by 2030-31. To achieve that goal the steel mills will require a lot of iron ore, deposits of which are ample in the country. But India does not have good quality coking coal which increases the operating cost, and impacts quality of the end-product, Mitra said. The Jharia belt is the only coking coal supply resource in India.

“But the best of that coal used to be utilised in running steam engines for decades. At that time, there was no steel demand. The coal was only sourced from Jharia and Raniganj belts. Jharia coal was the best and the top part near the surface has hard coking coal which is desired for making coke. Over the years, that hard coking coal has diminished. And we now have with the inferior varieties in the Jharia belt which has called for beneficiation and washing. Washing has been there for the last 100 years but it has to increase,” Mitra emphasised.

But why is coal so important for the steel industry? First, coal is converted to lump coke in a coking oven. Then raw iron is made by reducing (removing the oxygen from) iron ore (iron oxide) by reacting it at high temperature with coke in a blast furnace. About half of the carbon in the coke combines with the oxygen from the iron ore to make CO2. Since we do not have enough coking coal, we keep on importing it.