Coal news and updates

Government mulling to set up coal regulator; to come up with strategy to auction coal blocks

The government is planning to set up a Directorate General of Coal, along the
lines of the agency that covers hydrocarbons as it puts together a strategy to auction the coal blocks that have to taken
back from private companies following the recent Supreme Court order cancelling
allocations. The new office "would undertake similar sort of activities like the
Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH)," said a senior official aware of the
development.


Set up in 1993 under the administrative control of the oil ministry through a
government resolution, the DGH seeks to ensure the sound management of oil and natural
gas resources while keeping environment, safety, technological and economic
aspects in mind. DGH's responsibilities include implementation of the New
Exploration Licensing Policy through auctions of oil and gas blocks, checking
production-sharing contracts for discovered fields and exploration blocks,
promotion of investm ..

The proposed agency is likely to get help from the Central Mine Planning and
Design Institute Ltd (CMPDIL) on data and expertise. Coal India Ltd subsidiary
CMPDIL
is an exploration company that holds vast amounts of data on coal blocks in the
country. In fact, it holds reserve data for almost all coal blocks in India. It
has been given the task of auctioning three coal blocks for cement, steel and
sponge iron companies.


Although there has been no clear directive from the government, CMPDIL has
started rearranging the data so that blocks can be auctioned profitably. It
wants to ask the government to allow it to take over the deep-seated blocks that
are located below the seams mined by Coal India. "There are a few blocks in the
list which do not hold reserves that are economically viable to be mined. These
blocks need to be merged with the existing large blocks," said a CMPDIL
official.

Source: Economic Times