Hooghly Power plans 2nd coke unit in Orissa

Hooghly Met Coke and Power, the majority-owned subsidiary of Tata Steel, is planning to invest Rs 1,000 crore to set up another 1.6 million tonne capacity metallurgical coke plant, a top company official said.

"We are planning to set up a second metallurgical coke plant having the same capacity and at the same investment that we have made in our West Bengal plant," Managing Director Binay K Singh said on the sidelines of an environment seminar.

Inability to get additional land at Haldia has forced Hooghly Met Coke to plan for the second facility in Orissa.

"We would have ideally expanded our existing plant and had asked for 200 acres from the West Bengal government. But since the land has not been given, we have started scouting for sites in Orissa," Singh said.

Hooghly Met Coke's existing plant in Haldia is located on the premises of a closed Hindustan Fertiliser Corporation unit.

Final call on the new project, including the site selection, will be done in September when the existing plant goes on stream.

Hooghly Met Coke, meanwhile, has just started its commercial production.

"We have started off with two modules of 200,000 tn capacity each and the full production is being supplied to Tata Steel," Singh said.

The Haldia plant consists of eight modules of 200,000 tn capacity each, and all of them will go on stream by October.