Coal news and updates

SCCL gets new 45Mt coal block for development in India

Indian government-owned Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) has been awarded a 45-million-tonne coal block reserve for exploration and development in the southern province of Andhra Pradesh.
 
In a communication earlier this week, the Coal Ministry informed SCCL the Ministry had ceded to its request to have the coal block reassigned on the grounds that the block was spread across land occupied by native tribes and that only government-owned companies could legally acquire it for mining development.
 
“Considering the commitments of SCCL in meeting demands from linked thermal power plants and the depletion of its reserves, as pointed out by the company, the competent authority in the Coal Ministry had decided to assign back the Tadicheria II coal reserve to SCCL,” the communication said.
 
Exemplifying the protracted process of mining projects in the country, the Tadicheria II coal blocks were first allotted in 2005 to Andhra Pradesh Generation Company (APGenco), a power utility owned by the provincial government.
 
The mine was expected to be linked to the 500 MW Kakatiya thermal power project slated for implementation by APGenco.
 
APGenco subsequently awarded the development of the block to a private miner instead of State-owned SCCL, but the move was scuttled by the Andhra Pradesh provincial government, which wanted SCCL as the mine developer operator.
 
In March 2013, the Coal Ministry slapped a bank guarantee on APGenco for failure to meet any of the milestones submitted by the company during a series of review meetings held on the development of the coal block.
 
SCCL, the second-largest Indian coal miner after Coal India Limited, operates 13 opencast and 42 underground mines in the Godavari River Valley, in southern India, producing 50-million tonnes a year of coal. The Godavari River Valley basin is estimated to have a coal reserve of 8.79-billion tonnes along a single stretch of 350 km.

Source: www.miningweekly.com