India's Minister of Steel Beni Prasad Verma has urged the government-owned Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) to reduce dependency on imported coking coal and to source at least 60 percent of its projected 21 million mt per year requirement from domestic mines by 2015, a ministry official said on Wednesday, July 4.
Given the coking coal requirement of the steel industry, Mr. Verma also urged SAIL to expedite development of coking coal reserves of Tasra and Sitanalla, allocated to the company for captive consumption to achieve its target of 60 percent domestic sourcing of the raw material, the official said.
Last year, SAIL earmarked an investment of about $370 million for development of the two coking coal blocks to produce 4 million mt per year from Tasra and 50,000 mt per year from Sitanalla including a pithead beneficiation plant at Tasra. Project development works are yet to commence at each block.
Tasra has an estimated reserve of 285 million mt of coking coal, while the Sitanalla block has an estimated 108 million mt.
SAIL, the country's largest integrated steel producer consumes about 14 million mt per year of coking coal to produce 16 million mt per year of hot metal. Coking coal consumption is projected to increase to 21 million mt per year on completion of SAIL's expansion and modernization program which will increase hot metal production to 24 million mt per year within the next year.
At present, SAIL sources 4 million mt of coking coal from domestic sources like Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL), a subsidiary of Coal India Limited, and its captive mines, while it imports 10 million mt per year.