Coal India Ltd (CIL) has taken transformative steps under the ‘mission coking coal’ initiative for increasing production and utilisation of domestic coking coal reserves.
Under this programme, the country aims to produce 140 million tonnes (mnt) of coking coal by 2030 from present levels of 50 mnt. This holds importance in addressing the domestic scarcity of coking coal, which is a critical raw material for steelmaking.
CIL has planned to increase raw coking coal production from its existing mines up to 26 mnt. In addition, nine new mines have been identified with peak rated capacity of 22 mnt annually that are expected to be operationalised by FY25.
The company has also launched sales of abandoned mines in order to reopen some of the projects where mining operations had been discontinued. Over the two tranches of auctions initiated so far, 30 abandoned mines have been offered comprising eight coking coal mines with rated capacity of 2 mnt annually.
Development of new washeries
Apart from bolstering production, CIL has broken ground in setting up new coal washeries to improve the quality of domestic coking coal which is not suitable for direct use in the blast furnace due to its high ash content.
At present, the company has commissioned three coking coal washeries, Dahibari, Patherdih-I and Madhuband. Meanwhile, it is working to operationalise 9 more washeries with a capacity of 25 mnt annually.
Of these, New Kathara, Moonidih, Patherdih-II and Bojudih are under advance stages of development. In particular, contracts for washery development in case of New Kathara and Moonidih were finalised this fiscal. Tenders for the remaining washeries are under evaluation.
During FY22, CIL had supplied 1.7 mnt of washed coking coal to the steel sector and has set a target of 3.45 mnt for FY23.
Leave a Reply