Coal Gasification Plant for Urea Project | 18 Sep 2019

The Minister of Chemicals & Fertilizers has signed a contract for the coal gasification plant for the urea project at Talchar, Odisha.

Currently, the production of urea in the country is done by using pooled natural gas which comprises domestic Natural Gas and imported Liquified Natural Gas(LNG).
Import of LNG is costly and leads to spending valuable foreign exchange.
Hence it is preferred that an indigenous raw material is used for the production of urea and other fertilizers in the country.

The project will improve India's self-sufficiency in Urea, promote agriculture growth in India.
It will promote the use of abundantly available domestic coal in an environment-friendly manner.
Also, the success of this technology shall also propel the usage of coal for the production of other products like syngas, diesel, methanol, petrochemicals, etc.

The process of Coal Gasification chemically transforms the fossil fuel into Synthetic Natural Gas (SNG), instead of burning fossil fuel.
It produces Syngas which is a mixture consisting primarily of methane (CH4), carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen (H2), carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapour (H2O).
- Syngas can be used to produce a wide range of fertilizers, fuels, solvent and synthetic materials.
It is primarily used for electricity generation, for the production of chemical feedstocks.
The hydrogen obtained from coal gasification can be used for various purposes such as making ammonia, powering a hydrogen economy.
In-situ gasification of coal – or Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) – is the technique of converting coal into gas while it is still in the seam and then extracting it through wells.