CIL to up underground mine output

State-owned Coal India Ltd (CIL), country’s largest coal miner is looking at increasing underground mining (UG) and scale up CIL's total UG mining production from its current 45 to 66 million tonne by 2011-12.

A plan for this, to be implemented in all its mines had been finalized. According to N C Jha, director (technical), “Underground mining had not been getting the due attention but its time that it takes pace since post 2024-25 there would be a drop in open cast mining because of its increasing cost and high stripping ratio.” CIL had made a comprehensive action plan to be implemented in all CIL mines which would help to scale up CIL's UG mining production, he added.

Jha pointed out that although around 85 percent of the country's total coal production came from opencast mines and for the next 20 years the production from open cast would be substantial, the total cost of opencast mining was becoming extremely expensive.

In the near future, more UG mines would be developed in the country. The stripping ratio, which is related to the amount of over burden to be removed for producing one tonne of coal from opencast mining, was increasing, from the present average of 2:1. Thus UG mining would have to be adopted, he said.

Only 15 percent of country's total coal production came from UG mining at present due to lack of investment in technology and consequent higher cost.

CIL's different subsidiaries recently placed orders for high technology equipment for continuous mining and long wall mining, said Jha. While Bharat Coking Coal Limited placed orders for equipment in continuous mining from UK based Joy Mining Machinery Limited, Eastern Coalfields Limited (ECL) had placed orders for long wall mining equipments and power support from the Chinese mining company ZMJ. CIL would be looking into massive exploration work for improving the coal reserves and the stress would be on UG mining and increasing UG production.

This would also help CIL to scale up its total production from 380 million ton to 405 million ton by next fiscal, said Jha.