Tata Steel’s commissioning of a coke oven gas injection project at its Meramandali plant in Odisha brings an existing byproduct of steelmaking into a more direct role in iron production. The project uses cleaned coke oven gas as a reductant and partial substitute for conventional fossil fuels in a blast furnace, offering a route to reduce resource use and carbon emissions without replacing the blast-furnace process itself.
The development is significant because integrated steel plants generate several gases as part of their operations. Coke oven gas, produced during the manufacture of metallurgical coke, contains hydrogen and hydrocarbons, including methane. It can be used for power generation and heating, or it can be flared. At Meramandali, Tata Steel is instead directing the gas back into the blast furnace after removing harmful tar and sulphur.
The project illustrates a central challenge in industrial decarbonisation: emissions are shaped not only by the fuel used at the end of a process, but also by how materials and byproducts move through the entire plant. In an integrated steel facility, the same production chain generates both the fuels needed for ironmaking and gases that may be available for reuse. Capturing more value from those internal streams can reduce dependence on externally supplied fossil inputs, although it does not by itself eliminate the emissions associated with blast-furnace ironmaking.
Tata Steel said the gas is injected into the blast furnace through small nozzles known as tuyeres. The injection system was implemented with technology partner Paul Wurth-SMS and equipment supplier Kobelco. Before entering the furnace, the gas is cleaned to remove tar and sulphur, allowing it to be used within the ironmaking process rather than only for general heat or power.
The chemistry is important to the project’s stated environmental rationale. Hydrogen in the coke oven gas can act as a chemical reductant, helping remove oxygen from iron ore. Conventional blast-furnace operations depend heavily on coke and injected fossil fuels to provide heat and the reducing gases required to convert iron ore into hot metal. If part of that role can be performed by hydrogen-rich process gas, the quantity of carbon-based inputs required for the same operation can be reduced.
Tata Steel’s vice-president for technology, R&D, NMB and Graphene, Subodh Pandey, said the project demonstrated the potential to make greater use of gases already generated within an integrated steel plant. He described coke oven gas as a reductant and partial substitute for conventional fossil fuels, linking the initiative to the company’s stated objective of reaching net-zero emissions by 2045.
The company also presents the project as an operational intervention rather than only an emissions measure. Pandey said coke oven gas injection could enable the blast furnace to operate with a three-fuel system, increasing operational flexibility and efficiency. The supplied material does not specify the three fuels, nor does it disclose the project’s injection rate, investment, expected annual fuel savings or projected reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. Those figures will be important for assessing the project’s performance beyond its commissioning.
This distinction matters because the environmental value of process-gas reuse depends on how much gas is available, how consistently it can be cleaned and injected, and what fuel or energy use it displaces. A project may reduce fossil-fuel consumption within a plant while leaving the wider blast-furnace route dependent on coke and other carbon-intensive inputs. The material supplied by Tata Steel describes the project as a partial substitution measure, rather than a complete solution for emissions from primary steelmaking.
The Meramandali facility is an integrated steel manufacturing plant in Odisha’s Dhenkanal district and is described by Tata Steel as the country’s largest producer of auto-grade steel. The plant was formerly known as Bhushan Steel and became part of Tata Steel after the acquisition by Bamnipal Steel, a wholly owned Tata Steel subsidiary, in 2018. The transaction was identified in the supplied material as one of the early landmark resolutions under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016.
That institutional history places the gas-injection project within a larger phase of investment at the plant and across Tata Steel’s operations. The company is pursuing decarbonisation alongside capacity expansion and technology investment. In FY26, Tata Steel reported consolidated carbon dioxide emissions intensity of 2.22 tonnes per tonne of crude steel, while its research and development expenditure stood at ₹1,456 crore. The supplied information does not provide a separate emissions-intensity figure for Meramandali or quantify the contribution expected from coke oven gas injection.
The project’s policy relevance lies in the way it addresses emissions through process integration. Steel decarbonisation is often associated with major changes in production technology, but existing blast-furnace facilities also offer opportunities to reduce the amount of fossil fuel used at particular stages. Reusing a gas generated within the same plant can be implemented through modifications to equipment, gas cleaning and furnace operations, rather than through a complete replacement of the production route.
That does not make implementation simple. The gas must be collected, treated and delivered at conditions compatible with blast-furnace operation. Tar and sulphur removal is necessary because contaminants can affect equipment, process stability and environmental performance. The project therefore connects emissions reduction with plant management: a gas stream that might previously have been directed to other uses or flared must be made reliable enough for controlled injection.
Tata Steel’s operations vice-president at Meramandali, Sudhir Kumar Mehta, said the initiative combined operational efficiency with environmental gains. He said the plant was seeking to make its operations leaner and cleaner by finding a productive use for coke oven gas within the blast-furnace process. His statement frames the technology as part of continuous operational improvement rather than as an isolated demonstration.
The available evidence establishes that the project has been commissioned and that gas injection through tuyeres has been successfully implemented. It does not yet establish the project’s measured emissions savings, whether the system is operating at full intended capacity, or how its performance compares with other fuel-substitution options. Nor does it show whether the approach can be transferred directly to other plants, where gas composition, furnace design, production scale and existing energy systems may differ.
The broader urban and industrial question is how large manufacturing facilities can reduce their environmental footprint while continuing to supply materials for transport, buildings, vehicles and infrastructure. Steel is embedded in the built environment, but its production is energy- and carbon-intensive. Improvements inside plants therefore have consequences beyond factory boundaries, even when the immediate intervention concerns a single furnace or gas network.
Coke oven gas injection does not resolve all of the emissions associated with steelmaking. What it does offer is a specific example of how an integrated plant can use its own process chemistry to reduce part of its dependence on conventional fossil fuels. The next evidence to watch is operational: the volume of gas injected, the reduction in coke or other fossil-fuel use, the effect on furnace performance and the verified change in carbon dioxide emissions. Those measurements will determine whether the Meramandali project becomes primarily a plant-level efficiency measure or a replicable component of steel-sector decarbonisation.
