The Hindu : Business : CIL set to record sizable increase in underground production

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CIL set to record sizable increase in underground production

Special Correspondent

The agreement
with ZhengZhou covers a production guarantee of
3.5 m tonnes.

KOLKATA: The public sector Coal India Ltd (CIL) is hopeful of ending the current fiscal with its first-ever sizable increase in underground production, of around one million tonnes, Chairman and Managing Director P. S. Bhattacharya said.

Addressing a pressmeet here on the occasion of signing the first long-term production sharing project, he said that while underground production had shown a drop in every Plan period, this year a reversal was being noticed in the trend and production might be of the order of 44.2 million tonnes against 43.2 million tonnes in 2007-08. Overall, coal production was likely to be 405 million tonnes against 379 million tonnes of 2007-08, registering a 7 per cent growth. “We arrested the decline in underground production last year and this year we hope to reverse the trend,” he said.

On the agreement entered into with ZhengZhou Coal Mining and Manufacturing Group for supply and maintenance of power support longwall face in the 16th seam of Moonidih mine (at a depth of 600 metres), he said that this marked the beginning of advanced longwall underground mining in India.

Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL), which will buy this good quality coking coal, had earlier offered a Rs. 100 crore soft loan for bringing technology to work this mine. However, with improved cash reserves position of Bharat Coking Coal Ltd. (BCCL), which has the licence for this mine, this loan would no longer be required, BCCL Chairman and Managing Director T. K. Lahiri said.

The agreement with the Chinese company covers a production guarantee of 3.5 million tonnes in five years with a surplus generation of Rs. 383 crore over that period. The total contract is for Rs. 306 crore which includes an equipment cost of Rs. 129.88 crore and its maintenance.

Jiao Chengyao, President of the Chinese company, said that he was confident of achieving the targeted production in four years.

Wang Guangde, Vice-President of the China National Coal Industry Association, said that 95 per cent of the country’s coal production of 2.53 billion tonnes (which is set to touch 2.7 billion tonnes) was from underground production.

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