By Our Correspondent
NEW DELHI/BHUBANESWAR: India aims for 100 million tonnes (MT) coal gasification by 2030 with investments worth over Rs. 4 lakh crores, said Pralhad Joshi, Union Minister of Coal and Mines. Addressing a webinar on Coal Gasification and Liquefaction, Joshi said that Coal Gasification and Liquefaction is no more an aspiration, but a requirement.
He added that for encouraging use of clean sources of fuel, government has provided for a concession of 20% on revenue share of coal used for gasification. He emphasized that this will boost production of synthetic natural gas, energy fuel, urea for fertilisers and production of other chemicals. The webinar was organised by Ministry of Coal (MoC) in New Delhi for discussing the road map for achieving the target. The webinar was attended by around 700 delegates from Government of India, CIL and the coal sector.
JSPL operates the world’s first coal gasification based DRI plant of 2.0 million tonne capacity at Angul in Odisha, where syngas is used to make direct-reduced iron (DRI) or sponge iron, an input required in the steel-making process. JSPL’s coal gasification plant capacity is 225,000 NM3 per hour of syngas, which is supporting the 2.0 million MT of syngas based DRI plant.
JSPL Chairman Naveen Jindal, JSPL MD, Dr VR Sharma, Dr. V K Saraswat, Member NITI Aayog and Anil Kumar Jain, Secretary, Coal also addressed the webinar. Binay Dayal, DT, CIL; Dr P K Singh, Director, CIMFR; Ashutosh Prasad, GM, PDIL; Rajesh Jha, CEO, Mundra Synergy; Dr. Dev Gacaskar, Partner, True North Ventures; Bob Carter, Group VP, Air Products also shared their views and valuable information.
Reiterating on government’s commitments for green initiatives in the coal sector, Shri Joshi said that Coal Gasification and Liquefaction are well in the government’s agenda and various actions have been taken for development of Surface Coal Gasification in India.
A Steering Committee has been constituted in this regard under the chairmanship of Dr. V.K. Saraswat, Member, NITI Aayog comprising of members from the Ministry of Coal. CIL has also planned to set up at least 3 gasification plants (besides Dankuni) on BOO basis through global tendering and has signed an MOU with GAIL for marketing synthetic natural gas.
Joshi urged the attendees of the session to explore more about technologies & other aspects in Coal Gasification sector, in line with our country’s SWOT analysis. He added that this will help in harnessing nation’s reserves for maximum utilisation while heading on the path to sustainability, as per global standards.
