Coal India plans Rs. 10,000-crore joint venture with GAIL India, RCF, FCIL.

Coal India is planning a Rs. 10,000-crore joint venture along with GAIL India, Rashtriya Chemicals & Fertilizers (RCF) and The Fertilizer Corporation of India (FCIL) to set up a urea and ammonium nitrate chemicals complex that will run on gasified coal. Coal India has appointed Projects and Development India (PDIL) to conduct a feasibility study on the project. The plan is to use around 6 million tonnes of coal from coalfields at Talcher in Odisha and manufacture about 3 lakh tonnes of urea annually and around 300-400 tonnes of ammonium nitrate per day. Ammonium nitrate is the principal ingredient for making explosives used as blasting material at coal mines. The country is facing a crunch in the supply of ammonium nitrate and explosive suppliers often jack up prices, resulting in higher input costs for the company. ET