Bhilai Steel Plant's rebuilt Coke Oven Battery No 8 completes its first coke pushing
28 October 2026
At SAIL's Bhilai Steel Plant, Battery No 8 of the coke ovens has been rebuilt, and the Coke Ovens and Coal Chemical Department pushed coke from it for the first time on 28 October 2026.
The plant, run by Steel Authority of India Limited under the Union Ministry of Steel, calls it the point at which coke production resumes after the battery was rebuilt.
Coke ovens bake coal into coke, the fuel fed to blast furnaces to make iron, so the battery is central to the plant's own supply of raw material.
The rebuilt battery carries zero-leakage doors to hold back gas emissions, a gas mixing station for better energy management, and pneumatically sealed caps to keep water use down.
Along with coke, the department handles the coal chemicals that come off the ovens.
A K Chakraborty, Acting Director In-Charge and Executive Director (Materials Management), was present with the executive directors for human resources, projects, works and mines.
The plant describes the step as part of its wider modernisation of coke oven facilities.
In plain words
SAIL Steel Authority of India Limited — The central public sector steel maker that runs the Bhilai plant.
Coke Metallurgical coke — Coal baked without air until it becomes a hard fuel used in blast furnaces.
Coke pushing Coke pushing — Pushing the finished red-hot coke out of an oven, the sign that a battery is working.