Nagaur's plier and hammer makers heat on furnace oil: what is the footprint per tonne?

Roughly 1.15 t CO2 per tonne of hand tools on today's factors. Nagaur's 55 or so units burn about 12 lakh litres of furnace oil a year, 86% of their energy, and use 1.9 million kWh to make about 4,200 t of tools, mostly pliers and hammers.

How the cluster is split

• 41 forging units in Basni heat En-8 bar in oil fired furnaces and forge it under drop or spring hammers.
• 14 machining units in Loharpura grind, polish and assemble on electric machines.
• No unit does both, so each half carries a different footprint.
• Pliers and hammers are about 75% of output. Several units supply Jalandhar's exporters rather than export directly.

Whose figure is it

Almost all the furnace oil is burnt in Basni; Loharpura's footprint is mainly electricity. A forging unit's CO2 per tonne will be well above the cluster's 1.15 t, and a machining unit's well below. When a Jalandhar buyer asks for a figure, give your own, with the step you do named.

The saving the study found

• Forging furnaces are locally built of clay brick and mud with local burners and poor insulation.
• Better insulation, a proper burner, air preheating from waste heat and temperature control: about 30% less oil.
• Furnace auxiliaries such as right-sized motors and dampers: about 10%.
• Machining motors and clutches: about 15%.

What to record

1. Furnace oil litres from each invoice, and stock at month end.
2. Electricity bill units.
3. Tonnes of bar forged and tonnes of finished tools dispatched.
4. Rejects: the study estimates 4 to 5%, but nobody records them.

Cluster and an average forging unit (estimate)

• Furnace oil: 12,00,000 litres x 2.97 kg = 3,564 t CO2
• Electricity: 1.9 million kWh x 0.675 = 1,283 t CO2
• Total about 4,850 t / 4,200 t of tools = 1.15 t CO2 per tonne
• Average forging unit: 29,270 litres a year = 87 t CO2; a 30% furnace saving cuts about 8,780 litres and 26 t

Quantities from the UNIDO and TERI cluster brief, which itself gives 1.1 t per tonne. The per unit split assumes all oil is burnt in the 41 forging units.

What Senseible does here

The calculators give a per tonne figure from your oil and power; Senseible can read the oil invoices and bills behind it when a Jalandhar buyer wants records.

• Carbon calculators
• Jalandhar hand tools cluster

Sources: UNIDO and TERI, Nagaur hand tools cluster brief, IPCC 2006 Guidelines, Volume 2 Energy (fuel emission factors), CEA, CO2 Baseline Database for the Indian Power Sector (grid factor 0.675 kg CO2 per kWh, FY 2025-26)

Last reviewed 2026-10-31.