Economy & Market

The Great Pet Coke Roller Coaster

Published

8 years ago

December 31, 2017

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A few months back, in April 2017 to be specific, we wrote in these columns that "Looking into the future, we are left wondering if pet coke is really a sustainable cost advantage, or an environmental adventure that can backfire". To further explain, we had stated as our view, that firstly, the cost advantage had turned volatile, given the inherent fluctuations in international coal prices, pet coke prices, shipping costs, and currency rate changes, all of which induce a lot of uncertainties in the cost savings between landed cost of coal and pet coke on the basis of Rupees per unit of calorific value. Secondly, and more significantly, various stakeholders like environmental activists, regulators, green courts, and civil society members have started looking down upon pet coke to be an utterly unwise fuel choice from the environmental perspective. Looking back today, it would appear that some of what we anticipated have actually happened, lending an amount of credibility to our thoughts.

From April to this day, it has been a veritable roller coaster ride for cement plants using pet coke as fuel, in part or in full. The ride has been particularly daunting for those cement plants located in states bordering the National Capital Region. It has actually been somewhat like a "do’s and don’t’s" lesson in risk assessment and mitigation, at least on hindsight. What exactly happened?

Well, a lot of things, actually! Over the last few years, consumption of pet coke has spiked in India, driven particularly by the cement industry, and also by some of the power generating stations, and imports have sharply increased as well. Currently, India has been importing around 12 million tonnes of this fossil fuel, in addition to using up our own domestic production of around 12 million tonne. How did this growth of pet coke consumption come about? Many cement factories have been spending considerable amount of time and money to learn how to use more and more pet coke in their kilns without destabilising their chemical processes. In doing this, cement companies were goaded and incentivised by price increases and auctions by Coal India, threats of gradual withdrawal of so called "linkage coal", and similar other environmental stimulus. On the other hand, consider the negative signals emanating from the external environment, such as, the largest domestic producer of pet coke has invested in a huge gasification facility to enable in-house consumption of pet coke, and consider also that international prices of pet coke has been exceedingly volatile. But, recently, a few disruptive things happened in quick succession.

What with the high levels of pollution Delhi, the National Green Tribunal banned use of furnace oil and pet coke in states neighbouring the capital region. There was also a lot of focus on high-sulphur pet coke because of its adverse impact on environment. ET reported that this move could impact the earnings of the relevant cement companies by as much as 8 per cent. Then, after hectic lobbying, there was a relaxation for cement kilns, given its capacity to burn pet coke in an environment-friendly manner. But the relaxation came with a suggestion to nudge the government to discourage pet coke use, including considering a ban on its imports. But the government reacted in the only way governments can – by imposing an import duty on the commodity. Now, this was an interesting move, in that, it increases the indirect tax revenues of the government, but more interestingly, this immediately gave an opportunity to even the domestic suppliers of pet coke to jack up prices in a proportionate manner.

India Ratings said in its report, "The operating margins of cement companies, which use high proportion of pet coke are likely to be affected following the government’s decision to increase the import duty on pet coke to 10 percent from the present 2.5 per cent. The operating margins of cement manufacturers may fall by about 1 per cent, if the increased cost is not passed on to end users," – coming on top of a 32 per cent rise in pet coke prices already in the first half of FY18, with a 44 per cent hike in coal prices and a 7 per cent increase in diesel prices to boot, this is bad news for the cement industry.

So, it appears that this roller coaster ride has turned out to be rather distressing, and not so much of an enjoyable encounter for the cement players. An environmental adventure that really backfired!

Economy & Market

TSR Will Define Which Cement Companies Win India’s Net-Zero Race

Published

1 week ago

April 27, 2026

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Jignesh Kundaria, Director and CEO, Fornnax Technology

India is simultaneously grappling with two crises: a mounting waste emergency and an urgent need to decarbonise its most carbon-intensive industries. The cement sector, the second-largest in the world and the backbone of the nation’s infrastructure ambitions, sits at the centre of both. It consumes enormous quantities of fossil fuel, and it has the technical capacity to consume something else entirely: the waste our cities cannot get rid of.

According to CPCB and NITI Aayog projections, India generates approximately 62.4 million tonnes of municipal solid waste annually, with that figure expected to reach 165 million tonnes by 2030. Much of this waste is energy-rich and non-recyclable. At the same time, cement kilns operate at material temperatures of approximately 1,450 degrees Celsius, with gas temperatures reaching 2,000 degrees. This high-temperature environment is ideal for co-processing, ensuring the complete thermal destruction of organic compounds without generating toxic residues. The physics are in our favour. The infrastructure is not.

Pre-processing is not the support act for co-processing. It is the main event. Get the particle size wrong, get the moisture wrong, get the calorific value wrong and your kiln thermal stability will suffer the consequences.

The Regulatory Push Is Real

The Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules 2026 mandate that cement plants progressively replace solid fossil fuels with Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF), starting at a 5 per cent baseline and scaling to 15 per cent within six years. NITI Aayog’s 2026 Roadmap for Cement Sector Decarbonisation targets 20 to 25 per cent Thermal Substitution Rate (TSR) by 2030. Beyond compliance, every tonne of coal replaced by RDF generates measurable carbon reductions which is monetisable under India’s emerging Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS). TSR is no longer a sustainability metric. It is a financial lever.

Yet our own field assessments across multiple Indian cement plants reveal a sobering reality: the primary barrier to scaling AFR adoption is not waste availability. It is the fragmented and under-engineered pre-processing ecosystem that sits between the waste and the kiln.

Why Indian Waste Is a Different Engineering Problem

Indian municipal solid waste is not the material that imported shredding equipment was designed for. Our waste streams frequently exceed 40 per cent to 50 per cent moisture content, particularly during monsoon cycles, saturated with abrasive inerts including sand, glass, and stone. Plants relying on imported OEM equipment face months of downtime awaiting proprietary spare parts. Machines built for segregated, low-moisture waste fail quickly and disrupt the entire pre-processing operation in Indian conditions.

The two most common failures we observe are what I call the biting teeth problem and the chewing teeth problem. Plants relying solely on a primary shredder reduce bulk waste to large fractions, but the output remains too coarse for stable kiln combustion. Others attempt to use a secondary shredder as a standalone unit without a primary stage to pre-size the feed, leading to catastrophic mechanical failure. When both stages are present but mismatched in throughput capacity, the system becomes a bottleneck. Achieving the 40 to 70 tonnes per hour required for meaningful coal displacement demands a precisely coordinated two-stage process.

Engineering a Made-in-India Answer

At Fornnax, our response to these challenges is grounded in one principle: Indian waste demands Indian engineering. Our systems are built around feedstock homogeneity, the holy grail of kiln stability. Consistent particle size and predictable calorific value are the foundation of stable kiln combustion. Without them, no TSR target is achievable at scale.

Our SR-MAX2500 Dual Shaft Primary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive) processes raw, baled, or loosely mixed MSW, C&I waste, bulky waste, and plastics, reducing them to approximately 150 mm fractions at throughputs of up to 40 tonnes per hour. The R-MAX 3300 Single Shaft Secondary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive), introduced in 2025, takes that primary output and produces RDF fractions in the 30 to 80 mm range at up to 30 tonnes per hour, specifically optimised for consistent kiln feeding. We have also introduced electric drive configurations under the SR-100 HD series, with capacities between 5 and 40 tonnes per hour, already operational at a leading Indian waste-processing facility.

Looking ahead, Fornnax is expanding its portfolio with the upcoming SR-MAX3600 Hydraulic Drive primary shredder at up to 70 tonnes per hour and the R-MAX2100 Hydraulic drive secondary shredder at up to 20 tonnes per hour, designed specifically for the large-scale throughput that higher TSR ambitions require.

The Investment Case Is Now

The 2070 Net-Zero target is not a distant goal for India’s cement sector. It starts today, with decisions being made on the plant floor.

The SWM Rules 2026 are already in effect, requiring cement plants to replace coal with RDF. Carbon credit markets are opening up, and coal prices are not going to get cheaper. Every tonne of coal a cement plant replaces with waste-derived fuel saves money on one side and generates carbon credit revenue on the other. Pre-processing infrastructure is no longer just a compliance requirement. It is a business investment with a measurable return.

The good news is that nothing is missing. The technology works. The waste is available in every Indian city. The government has provided the policy direction. The only thing standing between where the industry is today and where it needs to be is the commitment to build the right infrastructure.

The cement companies that move now will not just meet the regulations. They will be ahead of every competitor that waits.

About The Author

Jignesh Kundaria is the Director and CEO of Fornnax Technology. Over an experience spanning more than two decades in the recycling industry, he has established himself as one of India’s foremost voices on waste-to-fuel technology and alternative fuel infrastructure.

Concrete

WCA Welcomes SiloConnect as associate corporate member

Published

3 weeks ago

April 13, 2026

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The World Cement Association (WCA) has announced SiloConnect as its newest associate corporate member, expanding its network of technology providers supporting digitalisation in the cement industry. SiloConnect offers smart sensor technology that provides real-time visibility of cement inventory levels at customer silos, enabling producers to monitor stock remotely and plan deliveries more efficiently. The solution helps companies move from reactive to proactive logistics, improving delivery planning, operational efficiency and safety by reducing manual inspections. The technology is already used by major cement producers such as Holcim, Cemex and Heidelberg Materials and is deployed across more than 30 countries worldwide.

Concrete

TotalEnergies and Holcim Launch Floating Solar Plant in Belgium

Published

3 weeks ago

April 13, 2026

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TotalEnergies and Holcim have commissioned a floating solar power plant in Obourg, Belgium, built on a rehabilitated former chalk quarry that has been converted into a lake. The project has a generation capacity of 31 MW and produces around 30 GWh of renewable electricity annually, which will be used to power Holcim’s nearby industrial operations. The project is currently the largest floating solar installation in Europe dedicated entirely to industrial self-consumption. To ensure minimal impact on the surrounding landscape, more than 700 metres of horizontal directional drilling were used to connect the solar installation to the electrical substation. The project reflects ongoing collaboration between the two companies to support industrial decarbonisation through renewable energy solutions and innovative infrastructure development.