SECL in expansion mode, to make Gevra world's largest coal mine, says CMD

South Eastern Coalfields Ltd (SECL) is aiming to scale up the capacity of its Gevra mine to 70 MTPA to make it the world's largest coal producing site by the end of ongoing fiscal, company's CMD Prem Sagar Mishra said.

Located at Korba, about 193 kilometer from Raipur, the capital of Chhattisgarh, SECL's Gevra mine is the world's fourth largest coal mine at present, the official told PTI in an interview at Bilaspur.

While two of the largest coal mines are in the US, one is in Indonesia, Mishra said adding "we are in expansion mode of our Gevra mine to 70 million tonne per annum (MTPA) to make it the world's single largest coal producing site."

In financial year 2022-23, the mine produced 52.5 MT of coal which was above its target for the year, the Chairman-cum-Managing Director said.

When asked about the timeline for achieving the 70 MTPA target, the CMD replied "we aim to achieve it by the end of the current fiscal year. We are waiting for the environmental clearances which we expect to attain by the mid of this financial year."

The company has applied for environment clearances for around 20 MT excavation capacity, the official said.

Sharing details of the Gevra mine, Mishra said it is an open cast mine spread over an area of 27 square kilometer. The mine has been excavated up to a depth of about 600 metres. Around 1.5 lakh tonne of coal is mined from the block on a daily basis.

SECL is also building a railway corridor connecting Gevra to Pendra Road and is in the process of installing two silos and a 20 million tonne per year coal handling plant in Gevra mine region for faster loading and transportation of coal from the block.

The plan is to transport the coal to the silos through conveyor belts and load it on the rakes through the silos. This process will reduce the loading time significantly and improve supplies of coal.

Based in Bilaspur, SECL with 67 blocks, is among the top three coal producing subsidiaries of Coal India Ltd (CIL), under Ministry of Coal. In FY23, CIL's output was 703.21 MT, out of which SECL's contribution was 167 MT.