Coal news and updates

State-owned miner Singareni Collieries Company (SCCL) has drawn up plans to strengthen its explosive making units. Also, it is also looking to set up more coal washeries to meet some of the rising demand. These are part of forward and backward integration plans, a senior official said.

 

SCCL has two site mixed slurry (SMS) plants at Ramagundam III (10,000 tonne per annum capacity) and at Manuguru (6,000 tonne capacity), which meets 15 per cent of total explosives requirement. Now, it is working to increase the capacity to 40,000 tonne and 20,000 tonne, respectively.

 

SCCL also has plans to convert SMS plants after capacity expansion into site mixed emulsion (SME) plants, which are advanced in terms of technology.

 

“We have stable ratings and the projects are bankable,” said Sutirtha Bhattacharya, CMD of SCCL. As a rule, SCCL ventured only of the IRR was at least 12 per cent even in case of coal projects. For related segments, it should be more than that, he said.

 

Before June 2008, when it bought the SMS plants from IBP, a division of IOCL, the total explosive requirement was procured from other suppliers. Due to this, it experienced difficulties with supplies, which resulted in an increased downtime of heavy earth moving machinery (HEMM).

 

At present, the company is operating 34 underground and 15 open cast mines in the Godavari valley. SCCL has coal washeries at Ramagundam and Manuguru for a peak capacity of 1.5 mtpa and rated capacity of 1 mtpa each. It proposes to set up another five coal washeries with 4.2 mtpa to 5 mtpa capacities, which will help to meet increasing demand for coal. SCCL now produces more than 50 mpta coal per annum.

 

SCCL is also setting up pithead 2 X 600 mw super thermal power plant at Srirampur. The plant where the thermal plant will be at the coal mine itself – would remove the need for coal transportation. Currently, coal travels about 600 km before reaching the thermal power plants.

 

From the power plant, SCCL plans to use 150 mw for captive purposes. This would mean a saving about of Rs 150 crore per annum against the power purchases from power utility Transco. The savings would be passed on its customers. The project is expected to be ready by 2015, he said.

 

 

Source: http://www.mydigitalfc.com/