India's Tata Steel Limited has inaugurated its new ferrochrome new plant in Odisha, Kallanish learns from the company. The new facility was inaugurated on 30 November.

This is the steelmaker’s first greenfield ferrochrome plant in India. It has a processing capacity of 55,000 tonnes/year and has been set up at a cost of INR 542 crores ($79.4 million), Tata confirms.

The plant is sited at the steelmaker’s industrial park in Gopalpur and is environment-friendly plant with modern pollution control equipment and technology, the company adds. It is the first plant in India to use the briquetting method of chrome ore fines agglomeration. Spread over 2970 acres of land, the industrial park is a multi-product Special Economic Zone.

Besides the new unit at Gopalpur, Tata Steel has two other ferrochrome plants in Odisha. These are a 65,000t/y plant at Bamnipal in Keonjhar district and the other with a 55,000t/y capability at Athagarh in the Cuttack district. The latter is under the management of Tata Steel subsidiary T S Alloys.