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‘CIL’s compulsory crushing may not improve quality’

Coal India Ltd’s (CIL’s) plans to introduce mandatory crushing of coal by all its subsidiaries may not actually help address the problem of grade slippage or reduce the high ash content, according to experts in coal beneficiation.

“Mere crushing of coal won’t help improve its quality. It may only make the size (of coal) uniform. But, when crushing is done, all other impurities, including shales and boulders, would also get crushed and get mixed with that coal,” an industry source said.

“It is only by using the method of beneficiation that coal can really be cleansed,” the source said.

Another source described CIL’s plan as only “superficial” and said the industry must wait till the planned washeries come up in order to get coal of the desired quality. There was also an opinion that due to the prevalence of manual loading onto trucks at CIL, 100% crushed coal is a distant possibility.

However, CIL officials claimed that the crushing process will not only reduce the coal size, but also remove stones.

“We are embarking on measures to improve quality by way of supplying (-)100 mm sized coal. The power houses and most of the consumers believe and we also have the understanding that if crushing is done properly and up to (-)100 mm level, many of the customers’ complaints would be done away with. So, this is one of the actions that all subsidiaries are taking and which will give very good results,” a top official of a CIL subsidiary recently said.

Source: ICMW