Indian state-run steel producer Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) will construct its sixth coke oven battery to ramp up with its own production of blast furnace grade coke, a company source said on Thursday, September 13.
The company official said that the decision to construct a new coke oven battery has been taken even as construction of the fifth coke oven battery is still underway.
At present, RINL’s four coke oven batteries produce around 250,000 mt per year of blast furnace grade coke but, in view of plans to rapidly increase the capacity of its steel mill, the company has taken the decision to add new batteries and reduce its dependency on commercial purchases of coke and lower costs of production, the official said.
RINL is considering carrying out the construction of the sixth coke oven battery based on the Build-Own-Operate (BOO) model so that it will not need to resort to bank borrowings to fund the construction, the official added.
RINL, which operates a stand-alone steel mill located in the southern Indian port town of Vishakhapatnam with a capacity of 6.3 million mt per year, has already taken the decision to increase the capacity to 7.3 million mt per year, to be completed over the next five years.