Prof. Dr. P. K. Jena : 

Iron and steel industry is the biggest mineral based industry, largely responsible for industrial and socio-economic developments of human society. In a country, the extent of industrial development can be measured from the amount of steel consumed per capita per year. Steel and alloy steels are used extensively in construction of rail roads, bridges, buildings, industries, machineries and other essential infrastructures, including domestic appliances.

In view of this, like the developed ones many developing countries have started producing steel by utilizing their own available resources as well as importing the raw materials needed for this.

Presently, China produces more than 500 million tones (MT) of steel per year whereas India is producing about 86 MT per annum. Realizing the absence of sufficient reserves of high grade iron ores, China imported colossal amount of low grade iron ores with a very cheap price and upgraded to make those suitable for producing steel at a cheaper rate not only to meet its internal demands but also to capture the world market. This enabled China to earn large amounts of foreign exchange.

Ironically, during this period, India exported the major part of its high grade ores with throw away price and imported steel and alloy steels with very high price. Now realizing the importance of steel in the industrial and socio economic developments of India, the National Steel Policy has been revised with a target to produce 244-300 MT of steel per year by 2025-2026. It is a huge task before the nation to achieve, that is to roughly enhance the present production to nearly four folds. For achieving the same, the nation has to overcome some major obstacles as given below:

1) Unlike China, India possesses very little reserves of metallurgical grade coal which comprises about 20% of the total coal reserves of the country and the rest are non-coking coal with high ash content. These need to be up graded.

2) Till the present time, most of the high grade iron ores have been exported and much lesser amount of this was used to produce steel. Therefore, it is necessary to mine and utilize all the grades of iron ores after proper beneficiation and agglomeration.

Indian low grade hematite is associated with goethite, kaolinite, and gibbsite minerals. Most of the ores are as such unsuitable for making iron particularly because of high alumina to silica ratio. High reserves of low grade iron ores like BMQ, BHQ, BHJ etc. are needed to be beneficiated for use in iron making.

3) Further, due to fragile nature of most of the ores, a large amount of ore fines are generated during mechanized mining and most of these are wasted.

4) The integrated steel plant development in India was quite slow. The main reasons in the past were wrong mineral policy of the government, want of necessary infrastructures and insufficient financial investments.

However, to meet our fast growing demand of steel in the country, we have to take a number of necessary steps as mentioned below in the areas of technological development and their proper implementation and creation of necessary infrastructural facilities.

a) Along with modernizing the mining, the low grade ores as well as the fines generated in the mines have to be properly beneficiated by applying techno-economically viable processes.

b) The high ash coking and non-coking coals have to be washed and beneficiated to minimize the ash content for use in iron making.

c) In order to supplement the increasing demand of high grade ores, the waste tailings containing around 40 pct. Iron should be beneficiated to recover most of the iron values. I may record here that about 40 years back at the Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology (IMMT), Bhubaneswar, I and my colleagues have developed the process to recover most of the iron values from the tailings and I am pleased to know that some of the industries are utilizing this process.

d) The high grade iron ore fines generated after beneficiation of low grade ores and tailings should be pelletized prior to their use for iron making. The pelletization technology has been developed and it is being used by a number of industries in the country. Many more such pelletization units should come up as early as possible to supplement the huge requirements of this raw material for steel making. The high grade iron ore fines suitably blended with limestone and coke should be pelletized and heat hardened. These pellets are considered to be very suitable charge for iron making.

e) In view of high capital investment in blast furnace and because of the availability of larger amounts of non-coking coal, it is advisable to setup more number of Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) units in the country requiring much less financial investment. It may be mentioned here that, in 1968, when I was Professor in Metallurgical Engineering at Banaras Hindu University (BHU), I started a research project on DRI (sponge iron) production using non-coking coal in a low shaft furnace. This project because of its novelty then in India, was financed by the Defence Ministry, Govt. of India. I am happy to find that at present, India is the largest producer of DRI in the world mostly through rotary kiln process. Various improved DRI processes developed in recent years should be utilized to produce more iron followed by steel making in Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) with much less capital investment. The existing DRI units which are facing difficulties in obtaining the raw materials should be helped by the government to increase sponge iron and hence steel production.

f) In order to make our inferior grade raw materials suitable for iron making, necessary R&D backup should be available in the country to develop environment friendly techno-economically viable processes. In addition to this, necessary steps should be taken to improve the energy efficiency of the steel producing units.

g) All necessary infrastructures like land, water, electricity, transport, etc. should be provided promptly to facilitate the timely production of steel to meet our target.

To achieve our goal for producing 250-300 MT of steel per year in the country by 2025, the Government of India should take necessary steps urgently involving concerned agencies and skilled man power. While doing so, every care should be taken starting from the mining of the minerals to production of steel to keep the environment clean and providing better life to the people living in the mines and industrial areas by implementing the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes sincerely.

{Dr Jena is Former Director General, Councli of Scientific Industrail Research, India and presently, Chairman, Institute of Advance Technology and Environmental Studies, Bhubaneswar)