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Coal India to increase focus on its consumers, chief says

Coal India, chasing a one billion output target, is aiming to improve the grade of coal to maintain uniformity and stop the supply of boulders and foreign materials. It is also taking steps to improve marketing.

“We can no longer simply sell coal…we need to market our coal “Chairman, Suthirtha Bhattacharya told The Hindu. The comment assumes significance in the backdrop of the increased thrust on production and the tardy pace of the economy.

“The pressing need of the hour for us is to be more consumer-centric. This is not a choice but an imperative”, he said. Sizing, washing and grading coal correctly are now seen as primary non-negotiable tasks. A standard operating procedure with guidelines for third-party sampling, at the loading end, has also been formulated.

It may be mentioned here that in first half of 2015-16, CIL clocked a production growth of 8.9 per cent against a net sales growth 7.3 per cent and a post-tax profit growth of 1.3 per cent. Increasing realisations is now an imperative.

To improve coal grades the company is setting up coal washeries as it reduces ash content in coal.

Altogether 15 washeries with a total annual capacity of 112 million tonnes on build-own-maintain basis with private entrepreneurs has been proposed.

The washeries help arresting grade-slippage.

Coal is graded according to the gross calorific value system (GCV), which is the amount of heat generated which burning a specified amount of the commodity. Currently, there are 17 bands and traditionally majority of Indian coal has high ash content, which low heat value. Washing improves this.

Surface miners are also being deployed by CIL for selective mining at some of the open cast mines for producing dust-free regular size coal in order to improve coal quality, while improving the blasting method to prevent mixing coal with overburden material is being adopted. Efforts are also being made to iron out the differences over third party sampling.

At a recent meeting in Delhi, on the issue of third party sampling, a slew of decisions were taken all of which are seen as consumer-centric and have the backing of coal consumers. Under this, a standard operating procedure for third party sampling of coal at the mine end is proposed.

The independent third-party agency will be appointed by Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research (CIMFR) through a bidding process for carrying out the task of coal sampling and analysis. The funding will be shared equally. The sample would be tested at a NABL accredited laboratory.

“There is an attitudinal change .. there is a serious thrust on quality,” Subhasri Chaudhuri, Secretary General of Coal Consumers Association of India said.

source: http://www.thehindu.com