In a bid for sustainability, Tata Steel has plans to produce a major portion of its steel from scrap-based production processes in the coming decade. At a time when companies are attempting to meet net zero and climate targets, the Indian steelmaker has taken the initiative to go for scrap-based production process, which is less carbon-intensive compared to the traditional blast furnace or basic oxygen furnace route.
The company, which boasts of around 20 million tonne of steel capacity in India, already has plans to double it to 40 million tonne, and a significant portion of this will be through lesser carbon-intensive processes.
Sanjiv Paul, vice-president (safety, health and sustainability), at Tata Steel told FE, “Some part of our growth story will be emanating from the scrap story.” To begin with, it has set up a small 0.5 million tonne scrap processing plant in Rohtak, which is already operational. The company is also looking to set up steel melting capacities along with that, which will happen over the next three to four years.
“Rohtak is a small facility and we are looking at having more such facilities distributed across the country, unlike integrated steel plants. These will be located in urban locations primarily in north, west and south of India where scrap collection will be easier given the high availability of scrap due to close proximity with markets,” Paul said.
At present, emissions from blast furnace or basic oxygen furnace are at 2.5 tonne of carbon per tonne of crude steel. According to Paul, with scrap-based processes the emissions will be down to roughly 0.1-0.2 tonne of carbon per tonne of crude steel.
However, with technologies for deep decarbonisation of steel not yet available globally, it is an uphill task for steelmakers to balance growth with abatement of emissions.
In such a scenario, Tata Steel plans to do much of the mitigation in its existing steel making processes through blast furnace/basic oxygen furnace routes, at least in the coming decade till technologies for decarbonisation become available.
“We are looking to improve the efficiencies of our processes through reducing coke rates through injection of natural gas, coal bed methane. Improving steel making capacities by reducing the hot metal contribution into our input, increasing scrap charge in basic oxygen furnace and other such methodologies,” he said.
The company is also exploring pilots to capture some of the carbon emitted from blast furnaces, and also looking at pilots for deep decarbonisation technologies, where hydrogen can be used as the reductant instead of carbon. “There are many such plans in the offing, but this decade will be more dependent on scrap based technologies, improving efficiencies in our existing production processes and thereby reducing emissions and the next decade will be more dependent on deep decarbonisation technologies,” Paul said.
The steelmaker has a target to attain reduction of carbon emissions by around 30% per tonne of crude steel by 2030, which translates to a target of 1.8 tonne of carbon dioxide per tonne of crude steel, from 2.5 currently. Additionally, the company wants to become water-neutral by 2030 at all its sites, and a zero-effluent organisation by 2025. The company also has targets on dust emissions.
