13 projects for coal extraction identified: CIL chief

Kolkata, Sep 12 (IANS) Coal India Ltd (CIL) has undertaken rail infrastructure projects for planned growth in production and sales and as many as 13 projects for coal extraction have been identified, Chairman Anil Kumar Jha said on Wednesday.

He said two coking coal washeries were commissioned and plans are on the anvil to set up a non-coking coal washery in Odisha’s Ib-Valley for which a letter of intention was issued.

"Coal India is tasked with meeting challenging targets in the years ahead. Going forward in order to meet the production targets, it needs to step up its growth rate.

"In order to achieve the planned growth in production and extraction in future, the company has undertaken major rail infrastructure projects," Jha said.

Out of the identified projects, three would be funded by coal companies, four to be funded by special purpose vehicles and six by railways, the miner said.

The miner is pursuing a production target of 610 million tonne in the current fiscal while it had produced 567.36 million tonne in 2017-18.

At the 44th Annual General Meeting, Jha informed shareholders that annual grade declaration of the current fiscal was finalised by the Coal Controller Office.

"A total of 386 mines were reassessed and out of these 61 mines were downgraded and 42 mines were upgraded," he said in his speech.

Jha also said, "A total of 11 coal blocks have been allotted to Eastern Coalfields, Bharat Coking Coal and Western Coalfields and these new blocks will help these subsidiaries produce more than 100 million tonne of coal per annum in near future."

He said four coal mining projects with an ultimate capacity of 24.6 million tonne per annum and a total capital investment of Rs 4,155.46 crore were approved.

In order to monitor coal quality, Jha said, a portal UTTAM (unlocking transparency by third party assessment of mined coal) was launched by the miner to capture the entire life cycle of sample.

According to him, coal reserve stood at 319 billion tonne upto a depth of 1200 metres as on April 1 as per the estimated geological resource of India.

CIL is planning to set up a coal-based methanol plant at Dankuni Coal Complex (DCC) of South Eastern Coalfields Limited.

"The methanol to be produced at DCC will likely to find a definitive market in the eastern states of India, once the policy of the government for blending of methanol with petrol comes into practice," he said.