Tatas, Chinese firms to ally for Kalinga project

Tata Steel is all set to sign up with two China-based companies for the import of technology and equipment for a 1.5 million tonne per annum capacity coke oven plant to be set up at its proposed 6 million tonne, Rs 15,000 crore steel facility at Kalinga Nagar in Orissa. The estimated size of the contract is Rs 500 crore.

The two companies are Anshan Coking and Refractory Engineering (ACRE) Consulting Corporation and the Chinese arm of Koch, a German company. While ACRE will supply the main battery, Koch will supply machinery for the coke oven plant.

Tata Steel is likely to sign the contracts with the companies next week. "We had considered a number of companies in Europe and Asia before selecting these two," said a senior company official, adding "their technology was best suited for producing good quality coke from inferior coal."

ACRE has undertaken designs for over 300 large and medium-scale coking plants in China.

The coke oven plant will consist of two stamp-charged batteries. While ACRE and Koch would supply the technology and some key equipment for the plant, the construction agents would be different, sources added.

The annual 1.5 million tonne coke output from the plant is expected to meet the first phase requirement of the steel project. Tata Steel would set up the 6 million tonne plant in two phases of 3 million tonne each.

Tata Steel has finalised technology and equipment supply for various units of the steel project, such as sinter plant, blast furnace, steel melting shop, slab caster and placed orders for civil and structural packages worth nearly Rs 6,000 crore.

While the order for one blast furnace, with associated facilities/auxiliaries, was placed with Siemens VAI of the UK, SMS Demag, Germany has been roped in to establish the complete steelmaking facility, including two 300 MT capacity LD converters, a three million tonne per annum two-strand continuous slab caster to cast 2,000 mm wide slabs with secondary refining.

A consortium led by L&T has been given the order for establishment of a 5.75 mtpa sinter plant for Tata Steel's Kalinga Nagar plant.

Meanwhile, with the November deadline for start of work on its proposed 6 million tonne steel plant at Kalinga Nagar approaching fast, Tata Steel will not wait for complete relocation of people staying within the project site to start pre-construction civil work.

"About 60 per cent of the affected 1,100 families (including core and extended families as per the R&R policy of the Orissa government) have been shifted out of the project site and we will start work after another 15 to 20 per cent of families are shifted," a senior official of the company said.

The pre-construction civil work consists of ground leveling, boundary wall and soil testing and all the contractors were in position to start work any time, he added.