Coal news and updates

CIL steam coal washeries’ capacity utilisation at 77%

March 19: The capacity utilisation of the existing non-coking coal washeries of Coal India Ltd (CIL) stood at 77.19% during the first 10 months of 2014-15, a government official said.

CIL has, at present, 3 non-coking coal washeries with total washing capacity of 13.50 million tons of coal annually. In addition, there are 31 private sector non-coking coal washeries in the countries with total capacity of 87.20 mtpa.

Of the three washeries of CIL, Central Coalfields Ltd’s Gidi Washery, which was commissioned in 1970 and has a capacity of 2.5 mtpa, has crossed its rated life and is presently running with 13.37% capacity utilisation, the official said.

However, Piparwar washery under the same company (CCL), which was commissioned in 1997 and has capacity to wash 6.50 mt of coal annually, is operating at 99.63% capacity utilisation.

At Northern Coalfields Ltd (NCL’s) Bina washery, which was commissioned in 1999 and has a capacity of 4.5 mtpa, operated at a capacity utilisation of 80.24%, the official said.

The performance of the outlived Gidi washery has resulted in overall lower percentage utilisation of non-coking coal washeries of CIL, the official added.

CIL has a plan of setting up 15 more washeries with a total capacity of 93.1 mtpa. Of these, 9 are non-coking coal washeries with a proposed capacity of 74.5 mtpa, and 6 are coking coal washeries with a proposed capacity of 18.6 mtpa.

Out of these 15 proposed washeries, 3 are already under construction and action has also been initiated for taking up the balance washeries, the official added.