Jamshedpur Injection Powder Ltd (Jamipol), which makes desulphurising compounds used by the steel industry to externally reduce sulphur content in hot metal, is aiming to set up stations at the steel plants.
So far, Indian companies were making steel with a sulphur content of 0.05%-0.06%. But producers are trying to reduce sulphur levels to as low as 0.003%-0.005% to meet the new requirements of the automobiles and white-goods industries. Sulphur can make steel brittle and reduce its deformability.
Since such reduction levels are not possible in the blast furnace, steelmakers were planning to set up their own units. Jamipol will offer to do the job and run the plant, having applied for a global patent for its process technology.
For Jamipol, a three-way venture between Tata Steel with a 42% stake, SKW Stahl Metallurgie AG of Germany (30%) and Tai Industries of Bhutan (28%), it will be a value-addition.
“It’s a new line of business for us,” managing director Amitava Bakshi told FE.
It makes desulphurisation compounds at a plant here, which supplies Tata Steel, and in Bellary in Karnataka, supplying JSW Steel.
Jamipol already commissioned a Rs 3.50-crore station at the Kharagpur plant of pig-iron producer Tata Metaliks.
The Bhilai Steel Plant of Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) and the Vizag Steel Plant of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd are among those putting up desulphurisation stations.
Jamipol’s market is also growing because of the expansion plans of steelmakers like Bhilai, which would need 300-400 tonne per month of desulphurisation compounds once its latest blast furnace is commissioned, and 1,000-1,200 tpm once production peaks.
Bakshi said Jamipol is also planning to set up a calcium carbide plant, and is looking at locations in Bhutan, West Asia, Argentina and South Africa, where power is cheap and limestone and coke are available.