Mines

Over 1,000 residents in Jharkhand's Dhanbad district will be shifted to safer locations, following the incident of a "poisonous gas leak" from underground mines, officials said on Thursday. A woman allegedly died on Wednesday, while 12 people fell sick after carbon monoxide leaked from such mines in different places of Kenduadih Basti in the district, they said. The exact cause of the woman's death, however, is yet to be ascertained and it could only be confirmed after receiving the postmortem report, the officials said. Soon after the incident, the Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL) started eviction of people from the danger zones, they said. The company also pasted notices on walls of houses in the locality, asking people to vacate at the earliest, an official said. BCCL's Putki-Balihati Colliery Area GM G C Saha told reporters that three ambulances have been kept on standy in the basti to deal with any emergency situation. The company is making arrangments to shift the residents to

The police have booked the owner of Krishna Mining Works and his business partners, Madhusudan Singh and Dilip Keshari, both residents of Obra

The Supreme Court has ruled that mining cannot take place within one kilometre of national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, extending earlier directions to all protected areas

The Ministry of Mines has proposed amendments to allow mineral block auctions to proceed with two technically qualified bidders instead of three to improve success rates

A woman labourer has found eight diamonds, which could fetch her lakhs of rupees, at a mine in Madhya Pradesh's Panna district, an official said on Saturday. Rachna Goldar, a local resident in her 50s, found eight precious stones with a total weight of 2.53 carats, six of which are of high quality, the official said. Diamond expert Anupam Singh said, "The biggest diamond weighs 0.79 carat. Besides, two stones are off-colour." He said Goldar deposited the stones at the district diamond office, from where they will be put up for auction, and are likely to be worth several lakh rupees. Goldar, mother to three grown-up children, had taken a mining lease in the Hazara Mudda area and found the stones while digging. She expressed hope that the auction proceeds would improve her financial condition. In Panna, an eight-metre mining plot is leased for Rs 200 annually. Diamond auctions are held every three months with traders from across the country participating. The final auction price i

CM Mohan Yadav said Singrauli's rare earth element reserves will make MP a hub for critical minerals, reducing India's reliance on China and boosting self-reliance in key technologies

Chinese battery manufacturer announced internally that the Jianxiawo mine would be halting operations temporarily, the report said, adding that affiliated refineries in nearby Yichun had been informed

A joint team from the NDRF and the Bharat Coking Coal Ltd started a search operation to rescue miners allegedly trapped during illegal mining in an abandoned coal mine in Jharkhand's Dhanbad, officials said. The operation by a 35-member squad of the NDRF and a 15-member BCCL mines' rescue wing began around 11.30 am, after a futile attempt to search for the miners late on Thursday evening. Meanwhile, confusion continues over the alleged mine collapse incident at the Block-2 closed underground mines of BCCL at Baghmara, with several leaders claiming muiltiple deaths in the incident. The NDRF was mobilised on Wednesday after Giridih MP C P Choudhary staged a dharna at Baghmara police station, demanding immediate rescue operations at the spot. "The MP has pointed out three spots as suspected sites of trapped persons. Search operation has started at one of the spots and other locations would come under its ambit soon," Baghmara police station officer in-charge Ajit Kumar said. The ...

Mines are rated on mine-level impact management, progressive mine closure and restoration, social welfare, and reporting, with three mines receiving seven-star ratings for their exceptional practices

Revised assessment cites breach of mineral rules and shortfall in dispatches from Sukinda Chromite Block; Tata Steel plans legal action against the demand

About Rs 3,000 crore was spent during the last three years by coal mine operators on progressive mine closure in the country due to the efficient work by the Coal Controller, said a senior official on Friday. Addressing the Indian National Committee of the World Mining Congress (INC WMC) here, V L Kantha Rao, Secretary, Ministry of Mines, also said that when it comes to the non-coal sector, the Controller General of the Indian Bureau of Mines is ensuring that all 1,200 mines are undertaking progressive mine closure. "They (Coal Controller) have ensured that in the existing, there are about 500 coal mines, and people have spent about Rs 3,000 crore in the last three years on progressive mine closure. That's a big achievement, and all the credit goes to this Coal Controller who has ensured that people spend not only at the end of the coal mine but also every five years," Kantha Rao said. He further said that in the case of non-coal, the state governments have been a bit slow in carryi

The auctions aim to expand coal production capacity, replace depleted mines and ensure long-term energy security as India targets net zero via diversification

In recent years, the number of fatalities has come down as the government has cracked down on illegal rat hole mining

Nine workers, aged between 26 and 57, became trapped when water inundated the mine, believed to be the result of damaging an underground water source during excavation

According to the Ministry of Mines, no bids were received for four blocks, while the remaining seven blocks attracted fewer than three technically qualified bidders

The government on Friday said that once Adani's Kutch copper refinery is ramped up to full capacity, which is likely by early next year, the country will be self-sufficient in refined copper. In a statement, the mines ministry said that till that time some amount of import of refined copper will take place in India. "Adani's Kutch Copper Refinery has since come into production. However, as per company officials, ramp up to full capacity will require some more time (about Feb-March 2025). Once achieved, India will be self-sufficient in refined copper, and will not have to rely on imports," it said. In the last fiscal, India imported about 3,63,000 tonnes of refined copper cathode worth Rs 24,552 crore. Japan accounts for about two-thirds 67 per cent-- of the refined copper imports. In quantity terms, about 69 per cent of the country's refined copper imports come from Japan. Tanzania is India's second important source of refined copper, contributing about 18 per cent of the imports

Japan held a memorial ceremony on Sunday near the Sado Island Gold Mines despite a last-minute boycott of the event by South Korea that highlighted tensions between the neighbors over the issue of Korean forced laborers at the site before and during World War II. South Korea's absence at Sunday's memorial, to which Seoul government officials and Korean victims' families were invited, is a major setback in the rapidly improving ties between the two countries, which since last year have set aside their historical disputes to prioritize U.S.-led security cooperation. The Sado mines were listed in July as a UNESCO World Heritage site after Japan moved past years of disputes with South Korea and reluctantly acknowledged the mines' dark history, promising to hold an annual memorial service for all victims, including hundreds of Koreans who were mobilized to work in the mines. On Saturday, South Korea announced it would not attend the event, saying it was impossible to settle unspecified .

The Act has established ad valorem royalty rates for key minerals, meaning that rates are based on the mineral's sale value rather than quantity

Creating a responsive enabling environment for the critical mineral mining industry is the key to ensuring that this vital business does not go the way of previous governments' oil exploration policy

State-owned Hindustan Copper Ltd (HCL) is implementing expansion projects to increase mine production capacity to 12.2 million tonnes per annum (MTPA), its CMD Ghanshyam Sharma said on Thursday. The move will boost domestic production of copper and reduce dependence on imports. The company achieved ore production of 3.78 million tonnes in FY'24 against 3.35 MT in FY'23, registering a rise of 13 per cent. Speaking during the 57th Annual General Meeting, Sharma who is holding the addition charge of Chairman and Managing Director, said that the ongoing capacity expansion project i.e. development of underground mine below the existing open cast mine at Malanjkhand Copper Project (MCP) will augment the ore production capacity from 2.5 MTPA to 5 MTPA. The ore production from open cast mine has now exhausted and underground mine is operating below existing open cast mine leaving some barrier pillar. The project has achieved seamless transition from open cast to underground mine in 2023-2