Coal India Ltd (CIL) is looking to retrieve production from its discontinued underground mines. The company has so far identified 12 such mines with provisional mineable reserves of around 1060 million tonnes (mt).

Of these 12 mines, eight belong to Eastern Coalfields Limited (ECL) and the remaining four fall under Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL), located in the States of West Bengal and Jharkhand.

“The project is on the drawing board but CIL aims to start the process soon to bring these mines back to active production. This is to increase production through indigenous sources,” the company said in a press release.

Coal of underground mines is generally of high quality and the ECL mines have coal of varying grades between G3 and G7, with one mine having coking coal that is used in steel making. All the four mines of BCCL are of coking coal reserves, which are scarce in the country.

Feasibility report

CIL is keen to fast-track the issue once the Central Mine Planning and Design Institute (CMPDI), its in-house mine consultancy arm, submits its report on the feasibility of the project.

While these mines combined have substantial reserves, they were discontinued due to several reasons, including difficult geo-mining conditions, economic unviability and non-availability of suitable methods to extract deep-seated reserves at the time.

CMPDI would prepare the study on sufficiency of extractable reserves in consultation with the concerned subsidiary coal companies to prepare a detailed list for revisiting the discontinued mines for production. Subsequently, coal companies will float tenders as per their requirement to engage suitable mine developer and operators and others having requisite technical knowhow to pursue the operations on their behalf, the release said.

With the advancement of technologies in the coal mining sector it is possible to extract the locked in coal reserves of these mines and this prompted the company to explore the option, it said.

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