Coal news and updates

‘CIL gearing up for 1 bn ton production target’

February 20: Coal India Ltd (CIL) has already identified new projects that would produce 908 million tons (mt) of the total 1 billion tons targeted to be produced by 2019-20, and the process of identification of the balance new projects has already been started, the company’s Chairman and Managing Director Sutirtha Bhattacharya said on February 20.

CIL, the maharatna coal mining behemoth, had been given the target to increase its coal production to 1 billion tons per annum by 2019-20 by the Ministry of Coal to help meet the country’s coal demand which is likely to touch 1.2 billion tons at a growth rate of 7% by then.

With the projected coal demand of the country hovering around 1,200 mt or 1.2 billion tons by 2019-20, at an envisaged growth rate of 7%, CIL is expected to chip in 1 billion tons, of which, new projects worth 908 mt have already been identified and the process for identification of the balance projects is going on, Bhattacharyya said while addressing reporters in New Delhi.

He said the two subsidiaries – Sambalpur-based Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL) and the Bilaspur-based South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL) - are expected to play a pivotal role in CIL’s quest of attaining the 1 billion tons target with each producing 250 mt and 240 mt respectively.

Bhattacharya pointed out that the key issues the coal miner is basically relying on to achieve the target are timely completion of three critical railway lines and timely land acquisition and Green clearances.

Elaborating further, the CIL CMD said important actions initiated are creation of the Coal Project Monitoring Group (CPMG) portal for regular monitoring of project-related issues with different ministries and authorities in various state governments.

“To overcome the hurdle of coal evacuation, CIL had decided to purchase 2,000 railway wagons from its own kitty for which a specific fund had been earmarked,” he said.

The co-ordination with Railways for implementation has already been initiated and to synergise its efforts, SECL has already formed two special purpose vehicles (SPVs) with state governments to develop rail network, including last-mile connectivity, involving Railways, Bhattacharya said.

More SPVS are on the anvil towards dovetailing railways infrastructure with Railways and the relevant state government’s participations, he said.

Bhattacharya said strategies for the future include technology upgradation in opencast mines with high capacity equipment, operator independent truck dispatch system, vehicle tracking system using GPS/GPRS, coal handling plants (CHPs) and silos for faster loading and monitoring using laser scanners. 

As far as productivity improvement in underground mines is concerned, Bhattacharya said that the steps taken by CIL will include introduction of continuous miner technology in large scale, long-wall technology at select places, man riding system in major mines and use of tele monitoring techniques.

CIL is also introducing a number of systems improvements that would help the company realise its challenging target. Use of ICT, remote-sensing geo-physical technologies and proper monitoring and evaluation methodologies will be the key features, Bhattacharya added.