Work on construction of Coke Oven Battery-5 (COB-5) of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited is going on in full swing to commission it by December 31, 2017.
It will generate 14 MW of power through waste heat recovery project – considered as one of the important key green-friendly initiatives launched by any major steel producer.
RINL, the corporate entity of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, is investing Rs.2,500 crore on the COB-5 along with existing batteries to meet its requirement.
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COB-5 will cater to the coke requirement of the plant. The plant has completed its 6.3 million tonne liquid steel expansion project at a cost of around Rs.12,500 crore. It is now in the process of ramping up the new units.
The COB-5 will come up along with the existing batteries with a capacity of 8.40 lakh tonne of blast furnace grade coke, one of the key raw materials for hot metal production. The COB-5 will be similar to the existing ones, seven metre tall and consists of 67 ovens each with by-product recovery and top charge type battery.
RINL is adding one more million tonne by modernising existing units like blast furnace to raise the capacity to 7.3 million tonnes by 2017-18 with an additional investment of Rs.5,000 crore.
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Now, it has 4 coke oven batteries
RINL presently has four coke oven batteries producing 2.48 million tonnes of blast furnace grade coke.
The coke requirement for the blast furnaces (net and dry) for 6.3 million tonnes hot steel has been estimated at 2.88 million tonnes per annum with 15 per cent ash content. Additional requirement of coke will be sourced from outside.
The company is presently introducing pulverised coal injection (PCI) technology in blast furnaces to reduce the coke rate subsequently and increase the productivity, RINL Chairman-cum-Managing Director P. Madhusudan told The Hindu .