To up coking coal output 50%

Coal India Ltd (CIL) plans to increase its coking coal production in the near future by around 50 per cent, both from domestic mining operations as well as overseas acquisitions. CIL produced around 35 million tonnes of coking coal in FY10, up 27 per cent over the previous financial year.

“We expect our coking coal production to increase over 50 per cent in future as raise production from Jharia mines,”

N C Jha, director (technical), said on the sidelines of an event to announce the company’s upcoming initial public offer here.

Jharia is the only coal field from which CIL draws most of its coking coal. However, due to mining operations being undertaken for the last 200 years, people have started living in the mining zone itself. The area also faces frequent subsidence during rains. “Due to habitations in the mining area, at present, we are not able to conduct deep mining in Jharia. So, we have undertaken a Rs 7,800-crore rehabilitation plan to relocate the people living in the mining area to mine coking coal,” Jha said. He added this would increase coking coal mining by more than 50 per cent post-rehabilitation.

Coal India is also setting up coking coal beneficiation plants to convert low-grade coking coal to high-grade coking coal for use by steel manufacturers. “We plan to set up five coal washeries to convert low-grade coking coal to high grade through reduction of ash content that can be used by domestic steel manufacturers,” he added.

Coking coal is a key ingredient in steel manufacturing. The total domestic demand of around 60 million tonnes of coking coal, 20-24 million tonnes of this raw material is imported for consumption of the domestic steel industry. “As India adds new steel capacity, the demand for coking coal is set to rise. In this perspective, our efforts are crucial to create reliable supply along with a check on price-rise of the raw material,” Jha said.

Further, Coal India — along with Steel Authority of India, National Thermal Power Corporation, Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited and NMDC Ltd — has formed a joint venture company named International Coal Ventures Ltd (ICVL) to vie for coking coal resources abroad. “Under ICVL, we are looking at coking coal resources in Australia, US and Indonesia,” he added.