India’s most worthwhile steel mill is brainstorming to expend over USD 1 billion and utilize more natural gas as it is striving to strip emissions. The steel industry is amongst the most colossal polluting sectors in India and firms are under pressure to expurgate emissions and shift to greener fuels as the country strives to achieve a net-zero goal by 2070.
JSW Steel Ltd. has reserved INR 100 billion (USD 1.34 billion) to decarbonise alongside shifting to solar power for energy and is striving to utilize more scrap, as per the Joint Managing Director at JSW Steel Ltd., Seshagiri Rao. The Mumbai-based JSW Steel Ltd. is also in discourse with GAIL India Ltd. for supplying natural gas to its most humongous mill, Rao stated.
Seshagiri Rao stated that JSW Steel Ltd. was in talking terms to GAIL for long-tenure contracts to purchase gas from the latter for the former’s Vijayanagar plant in the South Indian state of Karnataka. JSW Steel Ltd. is also brainstorming to utilize gas in future at its Dolvi blast furnace, Rao stated.
The swing to gas will imply an extensive transition in a nation that is dependent vastly on oil and coal for energy. It arrives as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration is strident for a gas-centric economy and to more than duple the fuel’s portion in the energy mix by the dusk of this decade.
JSW Steel Ltd.’s Green Steel
Indian mills are reconnoitring versatile avenues to cut down their dependence on fossil-based fuels and hinge to a global call for cleaner products. Tata Steel Ltd. last week stated that it was testing the utilization of coal-bed methane gas in one of its blast furnaces and was also emergent hydrogen-centric steel fabrication technologies to expurgate emissions.
JSW Steel Ltd. intends to diminish carbon dioxide emissions to 1.95 tons for every single ton of steel fabricated by 2030 from 2.52 tons in 2021, Rao stated.
Rao stated that the comprehensive decarbonization and energy transition necessitates humongous amounts of capital and it also surges the operational expenditure. Hence, when a firm produces less carbon-intensive steel, then its products should have precedence in procurement by consumers or realise a premium as the expenditures are advanced and investments are enhanced, he stated.