Nagpur: Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday, did the groundbreaking of two coal gasification projects that promises to inject 15,000 crore in the first phase — a big move to achieve energy security amidst the West Asia conflict that’s choking fuel supplies.One of the projects is dubbed to be India’s first green steel plant, while the other plans to derive dimethyl ether from coal gas and replace LPG as a cooking gas.Scaling up operations in the next phase would lead to investments of over 30,000 crore with a projection of creating 10,000 jobs. The twin projects are touted to be among the first coal gasification facilities in the country. The proposed facilities by New Era Clean Tech Private Limited and Greta Energy entail an investment of 8,000 crore and 7,000 crore respectively. New Era also plans to manufacture dimethyl ether, which can replace LPG. And Greta Energy is building a green steel facility through coal gasification, claiming to set up India’s first green steel unit with 100% FDI. Both facilities are expected to be ready by 2029-30.The event also marks the beginning of Bhadravati’s emergence on the country’s coal gasification map as four of seven projects approved in the country would come up there. The other two projects are of public sector mining company Western Coalfields Limited WCL, said Union coal minister G Krishna Reddy, who was present at the event.New Era is a venture backed by Inspira Global — promoters of pharmaceutical major Ajanta Pharma. The company also has NASA-returned entrepreneur Balasaheb Darade who hails from Buldhana as its managing director. Greta Energy is a company promoted by Global Ardour, considered the second-largest scrap recycler of UK and is headed by businessman Nitesh Chaudhari.Talking to TOI on the sidelines, New Era’s Darade said the plan is to pump in 8,000 crore in the first phase, followed by 20,000 crore in the second. The ultimate plan is to take capacity of extracting 50 lakh tonnes of gas. The company has a coal block in the vicinity. New Era looks forward to extracting hydrogen, urea, ammonium nitrate and eventually DME which can be the alternative to LPG. Even as coal gasification is seen as an alternative to natural gas and petroleum, more capacity needs to be built, said Darade. To replace LPG, 1300MT tons of capacity needs to be built. Urea is another critical commodity for which self-dependence needs to be built. The govt should also approve coal gas-based urea plants instead of petroleum, said Darade.The chairman of Greta Group, Chaudhari said the company’s plan is to make syngas for making green steel. The company would not only be capturing carbon generated out of it but also liquefy it and put it for further use. The plant at Chandrapur would open the export market for Greta especially in light of carbon border adjustment mechanism, a tax on carbon-intensive goods. With stress of CBAM in the EU, it paves way for selling green steel which also fetches a premium, said Chaudhari.
