Coal India & Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) signed a Joint Venture agreement in New Delhi for setting up an ammonium nitrate plant through surface coal gasification (SCG) technology.
The plant to come up in Lakhanpur area of Mahanadi Coalfields Limited, Odisha is planned to produce 2000 tons of ammonium nitrate per day initially.
The annual production is slated at 6.60 Lakh tons which requires 1.3 million tonnes (mts) of coal. The coal will be supplied by CIL. BHEL would bring to the table indigenously developed pressurized fluidized bed gasification (PFBG) technology for this purpose.
Debasish Nanda, Director, Business Development, Coal India signed the Agreement on behalf of Coal India, while Jai Prakash Srivastava, Director (E, R&D) was the signatory on behalf of BHEL. Amrit Lal Meena, Secretary, Govt. of India, Ministry of Coal, M. Nagaraju, Additional Secretary, Govt. of India, Ministry of Coal, Smt. Vismita Tej, Additional Secretary, Govt. of India, Ministry of Coal, and Smt. Nirupama Kotru, Joint Secretary & Financial Advisor, Govt. of India were present on the occasion.
Notably, ammonium nitrate is a major ingredient in manufacturing of bulk explosives which CIL uses in large quantities in its OC mining operations, a major source of its coal production.
