Gujarat NRE Coke plans foray into power generation
(Business Standard, Ahmedabad, March 29, 2005)

Gujarat NRE Coke Limited. (GNCL), the largest coke manufacturer in the country, is exploring the possibilities of foraying into power generation. The heat recovery technology that it is implementing at its three coke manufacturing plants in Karnataka and Gujarat is likely to assist the company in generating power of about 50 megawatts.

GNCL, at present, is in the process of importing Stamp Charging Facility from China. GNCL President Sumeet Khetan said that this technology enables compression of coking coal in a hydraulic chamber. "The coke made by this process is of an extremely good quality and after TISCO, GNCL will be the only company to adopt this technology" he said.

Khetan added the the facility will first be installed at the Dharwar plant in Karnataka, that will be commissioned in 12 months from now. "Once the stamp charging facility with technology for heat recovery oven is implemented, coke oven plants set up with heat recovery technology will be capable of producing power at nominal cost. "The company is exploring power generation as a forward integration project at a later date once full reform in power sector is in place. The three plants combined will be in a position to generate 50 - MW of power," he added.

GNCL is setting up its third coke plant at Dharwar in Karnataka to produce 400,00 MTPA of Coke. After completion of this project, the total capacity of the company will he more than ten lakh MTPA. Gujarat NRE Coke, the only exporter of coke from India, has already exported coke worth Rs.70 crore since its first ever export to Brazil in July 2004.

Gujarat NRE Coke is also setting up a Greenfield plant at Bhachau in Kutch with an installed capacity of 3.24 lakh TPA which is expected to become fully operational in the coming months.