The plant will produce about 0.66 million tonnes of ammonium nitrate a year.
Bharat Coal Gasification and Chemicals Ltd, a joint venture of Coal India and BHEL, has begun construction on a Rs 25,000 crore coal-to-ammonium nitrate project in Odisha.
The plant will produce about 0.66 million tonnes a year of technical-grade ammonium nitrate using domestically developed pressurised fluidised bed gasification technology. Coal India holds 51 per cent of the venture and BHEL 49 per cent.
Contracts worth about Rs 15,000 crore have been awarded so far, with Rs 10,000 crore to BHEL for gasification and gas cleaning, and Rs 5,000 crore to L&T for the ammonia and ammonium nitrate units.
The project is part of the National Coal Gasification Mission, which aims for 100 million tonnes of gasification capacity by 2030 to cut imports of LNG, urea, ammonia and methanol.
