India’s Dalmia OCL Limited has commissioned the country’s largest refractory production line of magnesia carbon bricks, a company official said on Tuesday, September 22.
The official said that the refractory production unit in Odisha has a capacity of 108,000 mt per year and would cut India’s import dependency for magnesia carbon refractory material by at least 50 per cent.
He said that the plant would come up in three phases of 36,000 mt per year each.
Total domestic demand for this refractory material is estimated at around 300,000 mt per year, with the bulk of it sourced from overseas producers by domestic steel mills, the official added.
Dalmia OCL Limited was localizing production of most refractory materials, providing supply support to large domestic steel mills like Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), JSW Limited, Tata Steel, Jindal Steel and Power Limited and ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel Limited.
The company will invest another estimated $14 million over the next five years to further augment refractory production capacities to meet rising domestic demand from steel mills and also enter export markets in Europe, the official said.