Companies are increasingly using liquified petroleum gas (LPG) as a cleaner alternative to carbon-intensive fossil fuels, a top executive of Confidence Petroleum said in an interview.
"We are being approached by industries to evaluate infusing LPG in a bid to increase cleaner fuel adoption in a cost-effective way," Confidence Petroleum business head for LPG, Rajashree Telharkar, told Moneycontrol in an interview.
Telharkar added that steelmakers, such as JSW Group, have also reached out to the company. "We are drawing plans for their Anjar plant in Gujarat. The LPG tankers will be brought to the plant and stored in bullets already there in the plant's existing infrastructure. We will construct the pipeline through which the LPG will reach the burner," she said.
Asked about the development, JSW Steel, which has a plate & coil mill in Anjar, said, "We are not using LPG in our reheating furnaces."
Meanwhile, in 2023, Tata Steel said that the company is in talks with state-run GAIL Ltd for liquified natural gas (LNG) supplies to replace a significant portion of diesel used at its mines to cut carbon emissions. The steelmaker is looking to replace 25-30 percent of diesel used by its Heavy Earth Moving Machinery at its mines.
Role of LPG in steel making
So far, the gas has been used for melting and refining processes in the production of iron and steel as it facilitates precise temperature control and enables the efficient melting of raw materials.
The industry is looking to use LPG for smelting purposes according to Confidence Petroleum. Smelting is the process of applying heat and a chemical-reducing agent to an ore to extract a desired base metal product.
Currently, the steel industry relies on coke, derived from coal, to smelt iron ore to produce steel.
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