State-run miner Coal India Ltd (CIL) is planning to deploy green mining options in a bid to minimize adverse environmental impact and enhance coal production.
In particular, the miner has set a target to ramp up coal production from undeground (UG) mines four-fold to 100 million tonnes (mnt) by FY2029-30 (FY30) from 25.6 mnt in FY22. This would be achieved in a phased manner though implementation of eco-friendly technologies.
Importance of green mining?
Coal produced from UG mines is environmentally clean, minimally invasive and thus low on land degradation and is society-friendly.
However, delay on account of the gestation period, unavailability of indigenous equipment and skilled labour, and high production cost are some of the issues that have affected the development.
CIL has stated that UG output has contracted by 57.7% till FY22 while production from opencast (OC) mines expanded by 8.5 times, since nationalization of the coal sector was introduced in 1975.
The aim of this transition is to gradually increase UG production at a time when mineable coal reserves of OC mines are decreasing.
Moreover, the technologies would help the company to extract the mineable reserves that were earlier left out due to techno-commercial and safety concerns. This would be carried out without the need for additional land acquisition.
New initiatives
In order to shift towards mass production technologies, CIL has planned to introduce 50 continuous miners by FY25 with peak production potential of 25 mnt annually. Of these, 21 machines are already deployed in Eastern Coalfields (ECL), Central Coalfields (CCL) and South Eastern Coalfields (SECL) producing 9 mnt/annum.
In addition, two powered support long wall (PSLW) machines, that are operating in ECL and Bharat Coking Coal (BCCL), had produced 1.58 mnt in FY22. BCCL is expected to procure two more PSLWs soon.
Moreover, CIL has set sight on mining coal through punch entry in those OC mines which have reached their ultimate pit levels. On pilot basis, this technique would be implemented across 5 projects by FY24 in order to extract those mineable reserves that have economic viability.
Another environment-friendly step involves use of fly ash to fill void created by extracting coal from UG mines under ‘past fill’ technology. This system is in advanced stage of implementation in ECL.
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