Efforts are being made to diversify the coking coal import sources: Pradhan

The government has taken several steps to secure coking coal supplies for the domestic steel industry and is making efforts to diversify the raw material's import sources, Parliament was informed on Monday.

While output of iron ore, another key raw material for the steel industry, in the country is sufficient to meet the current demand, the entire demand of coking coal is not met from domestic production as the availability of high-quality coking coal (low-ash coal) in the country is limited and, thus, no option is left but to resort to import of coking coal, Union Steel Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said in a reply to a query in the Lok Sabha.

Pradhan also said the government has taken several steps in order to secure coking coal supplies for the Indian steel industry. Efforts are being made to import coking coal from the US, Russia and Mongolia to diversify the coking coal import sources, he said.

"During 2018-19, the total demand of coking coal for the steel industry was 58.37 million tonne (MT). Out of this, 51.83 MT was met through imports, 1.6 MT was provided by Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL) and Coal India Ltd (CIL) and the remaining was catered by captive collieries of SAIL and Tata Steel," he said.

Two coking coal mines Rohne and Rabodih were allocated to steel central public sector enterprises, NMDC and RINL.

Long-term linkage of raw coking coal was granted to Steel Authority of India Ltd from BCCL and lease of Tasra coking coal block was extended in favour of SAIL.