Saharanpur foundries cast hand pumps on coke: what is the cluster's footprint?
Roughly 0.9 t CO2 per tonne of castings, about 18,700 t a year in all. Saharanpur's 50 working foundries made about 21,000 t from 4,100 t of coke and 9.3 million kWh. Coke gives two thirds of the CO2, and the smallest cupola units run far higher per tonne.
Who casts what
- About 100 foundries exist; about 50 were working when TERI surveyed them.
- Hand pump castings are 60% of output, sewing machine parts 25%, paper mill machinery 10%. Hand pumps also go to Nepal and Bhutan.
- Nearly all melt in conventional cupolas of 2 to 4 t an hour, most over ten years old; only two use induction furnaces.
- Coke is a mix of Dhanbad coke (about 24% ash) and Gujarat coke (about 12%), usually 60 to 70% Dhanbad.
Why size matters
A unit making 60 t of saleable castings a year uses a third of a tonne of coke per tonne, against about a fifth at 500 to 1,000 t. Coke runs at 20 to 25% of metal melted and 30 to 35% of good castings, so rejects and returns cost you twice.
The cheapest cuts first
- Bring rejects from 10 to 15% down below 5% with tighter process control.
- Knock sand off runners and risers before remelting; it is 4 to 5% of their weight.
- Size the blower to the cupola's inner diameter: about 5% less coke.
- Fix charging and operating practice: 5 to 10%.
- Then a divided blast cupola: about 100 kg of coke per tonne of liquid metal against 150 to 200 kg now, with payback inside a year on coke alone.
What to send a pump buyer
Give CO2 per tonne of good castings, naming coke tonnes, kWh and factors, then per pump from the casting weight of each model.
Three unit sizes and the cluster (estimate)
- 60 t castings: 20 t coke x 3.02 = 60 t; 50,000 kWh x 0.675 = 34 t; 1.57 t CO2 per tonne
- 500 t: 110 t coke = 332 t; 200,000 kWh = 135 t; 0.93 t per tonne
- 1,000 t: 200 t coke = 604 t; 500,000 kWh = 338 t; 0.94 t per tonne
- Cluster: 4,100 t coke = 12,382 t; 9.3 million kWh = 6,278 t; 18,660 t / 21,000 t = 0.89 t per tonne
Coke, power and output from TERI's cluster profile (2014-15). Coke at the IPCC default for coke oven coke; high ash coke carries less carbon per tonne, so a lab carbon result would refine this.
What Senseible does here
Put your coke tonnes and kWh into the calculators for a first figure per tonne; Senseible can then read each month's power bill and coke invoice into records you can show a buyer.
Sources: TERI, Cluster profile: Saharanpur foundries, SAMEEEKSHA, Saharanpur foundry cluster summary, 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.