Coal India Ltd (CIL) has envisaged to produce 52.95 MnT coking coal during FY20, thereby recording a growth in excess of 50% from the output of 35.16 MnT noted in FY19.
The information was provided by Coal Minister Mr Pralhad Joshi in response to a question raised during Rajya Sabha session yesterday.
The coal minister highlighted that the entire demand of coking coal was not met from domestic production due to limited supply of coking coal in the country, thus the consuming sectors were left with no alternative than to resort to imports. During the FY19, import of coking coal was marked at 51.84 MnT.
Apparently, CIL’s production of coking coal has not been satisfactory in line with the rising demand.
Coking coal production in FY19 rebounded after falling in FY18 to record 6% growth on the year-on-year basis, but had accounted only 5.8% in the total coal production during the fiscal. In fact, the share of coking coal has nearly halved in the past 5 fiscals.
Further in order to reduce coking coal imports, the coal minister informed a list of reforms aimed to increase the availability of domestic coking coal.
Introduction of New Coking Coal Grades: Two additional grades of coking coal viz. Washery Grade-V and VI ( W-V: ash% exceeding 35% up to 42% and W-VI: ash% exceeding 42% up to 49%) have been introduced to the existing four washery grades (W-I to W-IV) supplied from BCCL and CCL, which are the major coking coal producing subsidiaries of CIL.
In its annual grade declaration, CCL has notified that W-V grade of coking coal was available from Govindpur Phase-II, Karo-I Project, AKK OC, Sel Dhori OC and Amalgamated Amlo Dhori OC collieries, while W-VI coal grade was marked in Sarubera colliery.
Similarly, supplies of W-V grade of coking coal from BCCL were made available from Amalgamated Block-II OC, Govindpur, Tetulmari and Amalgamated North Tisra & South Tisra collieries. Supply of W-VI was marked from Tetlmari colliery.
Commissioning of New Coal Washeries: CIL has envisaged setting up of 9 new coking coal washeries by 2020-21, which would enhance supply of washed coking coal to 15 MnT in the next 3-4 years from the present level of 1.6 MnT.
In addition, long term Fuel Supply Agreements (FSAs) with Steel companies was also considered to improve domestic coking coal availability.
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