Decline in overburden removal may pull down coal output

Pratim Ranjan Bose Updated - November 07, 2018 at 08:22 PM.

Land availability, contract woes behind 3.4% fall in OB removal this year

Coal Minister Piyush Goyal is not content with Coal India Ltd’s (CIL) robust 10 per cent production growth till October. He wants more to meet the demand. But, if the indications are right, CIL will struggle to maintain even the current level of production next year.

The problem lies with opencast mines that contribute 94-95 per cent of CIL’s production. Till October, opencast production grew at a record 11 per cent. But over-burden (OB) removal, a key feature in opencast mining, dropped by 3.4 per cent, which means seams are not adequately exposed for future production.

The trend was evident in the first quarter — when OB removal was marginally down — and consolidated with time.

On an average, in India, the opencast method requires the replacement of 1.8 tonnes of earth to produce 1 tonne of fuel. With shallower seams getting exhausted, this ratio is increasing every year.

For coal mining to be sustainable, it is therefore imperative that production and OB rates remain in tandem. What’s worrisome now is that OB removal is down in four out of seven CIL mining subsidiaries.

Among CIL’s top three subsidiaries, contributing over 70 per cent of production, Chhattisgarh-based South Eastern Coalfields (SECL) reported a slender positive growth of 2.6 per cent in OB removal, as against opencast production growth of 17 per cent. Madhya Pradesh-based Northern Coalfields (NCL) reported 12 per cent production growth but OB removal declined 9 per cent. At the Odisha-based Mahanadi Coalfields (MCL), production was stagnant but earth removal declined 6.5 per cent.

MCL is suffering from lack of land availability, which is telling on its composite (production and OB) performance. Opencast production is essentially a factor of land availability, which is difficult in Odisha, both due to State government rules and socio-political volatility. The turf war between the ruling BJD and the BJP has worsened the situation.

Little resistance

But NCL has no such excuse as it faces the least resistance for land acquisition. It has simply failed to manage contracts, as is evident in the 14 per cent decline in hired OB removal activity.

Things would have been worse had NCL not managed 40 per cent of OB activity by its own man and machine — referred to as ‘departmental’ in company parlance — which is up by 7.6 per cent.

A closer look at data reveals that barring Eastern Coalfields (ECL) and Central Coalfields (CCL), which have scored high on composite production, all subsidiaries suffered from contract management problems leading to a decline in hired OB activity. CIL Chairman AK Jha was not available for comments but company sources blame the reverse action mechanism, made mandatory by the government, for the fiasco.

The situation is “unprecedented”. Industry sources expect the company to slow down production to more sustainable levels to avoid disaster. The fear is: to maintain growth in the prevailing situation, the company may resort to unsafe mining.

However, there may not be many takers for any such advices at this juncture. As captive production dropped significantly after the coal auction in 2015, India is dependent on CIL like never before.

At CIL’s Foundation Day programme here recently, Goyal urged the company to step up daily production by 40 per cent from approximately 1.75 million tonnes to 2.5 mt.

Published on November 7, 2018 14:41
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