Inox Air announces Rs 750 cr O2 plant at Sail’s Bokaro plant

Inox Air Products, the manufacturer of industrial and medical gases in the country, has announced its largest greenfield project at Steel Authority of India Ltd’s (Sail) Bokaro plant with an investment of Rs 750 crore.

This is the company’s second cryogenic air separation unit at the Bokaro plant in Jharkhand and is also the largest investment in a new oxygen plant.

The new unit will generate 2,150 tonnes per day (TPD) of industrial gases, including 2,000 TPD of gaseous Oxygen, 150 TPD of liquid oxygen, 1,200 TPD of gaseous nitrogen and 100 TPD of argon, Inox Air said in a statement on Tuesday.

With the commissioning of this project, the company’s combined production capacity at Bokaro plant will be over 6,300 TPD for all gases, Inox Air Director Siddharth Pavan Jain said, adding this is their largest ever greenfield investment to date.

The new unit will also hugely augment the availability of vital liquid medical oxygen, not only in the eastern parts of the country but across the nation.

Inox’s long-term onsite gas supply partnership with Sail began in 2008 with the setting up of its first cryogenic air separation unit of 1,250 TPD on a build, own and operate basis at the Bokaro plant, followed by another unit at Sail’s Salem plant with a capacity of 108 TPD in 2011.

Inox has been servicing the needs of the manufacturing and healthcare sector for over six decades now. Through its 45 air separation units located across the country, Inox manufactures over 3,300 TPD of liquid gases.

The enhanced availability of medical and industrial gases from the new Bokaro unit will aid industrial growth in Jharkhand and eastern states while ensuring supplies for the electronic manufacturing and pharmaceutical sector, and helping iron, steel and automobile industries to ramp up production, the company claimed.

It can be noted that during the pandemic, Inox catered to over two-thirds of the medical oxygen demand in the country, supplying to over 800 hospitals through a fleet of 550 cryogenic transport tanks and 600 drivers from across its 45 plants with an installed capacity of over 20,000 TPD.

In 2021, the company entered into a joint venture with Arcelor-Mittal to set up five plants with a capacity of 9,000 TPD on completion.

It was established in 1963 by the Jain family as Industrial Oxygen Company in Pune.

In 1999, it was renamed as Inox Air Products after Air Products and Chemicals Inc of the US acquired a 50 per cent stake in the company. PTI