Coal news and updates

Govt aims to eliminate coal imports by FY26

Coal ministry’s 100-day plan includes push to CIL’s RE venture, 10th round of coal auction

The government is now set to launch the 10th round of auction of coal blocks within this week and will put 62 blocks under the hammer.

The coal ministry will seek to reduce the import of the dry fuel to nil by FY26. To achieve the same, it will operationalise 20 new mines in the current fiscal year, including 12 with a total capacity of 58 million tonnes in the first 100 days of the new government.

The government is confident of producing 1.08 billion tonnes of coal in the current financial year while reducing imports. In FY24, the country’s coal sector companies cumulatively imported 265 million tonnes of coal, up from 245 million tonnes in FY23, as per official data.

“We will inaugurate the first unit of NLC’s Ghattampur thermal power plant in the first 100 days and there is also diversification of solar energy of Coal India and its subsidiaries by almost 1 GW.”

The government’s target of increasing the renewable energy capacity of CIL comes amid the larger goal of achieving 500 GW of non-fossil fuel energy capacity by 2030. State-run coal companies cumulatively plan to achieve 9 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030, the government had earlier said.

The government is now set to launch the 10th round of auction of coal blocks within this week and will put 62 blocks under the hammer.

ALSO READ

India Inc to post tapered revenue growth in Q1FY25, says ICRA

The move comes amid rising demand for power which is estimated to touch 260 GW this summer.

The government is also aiming to open three coking coal mines in Jharkhand this fiscal with capacity ranging from 5 MT to 6.5 MT.

“This year, we are going to open three coking coal mines – all in Jharkhand. One of them will be the largest coking coal mine in the country,” said the source.

In its further attempt to reduce the imports of coking coal, typically used in the steel industry, the government also plans to open a washery in CIL’s subsidiary – Bharat Coking Coal Ltd with a capacity of 2 million tonnes as a part of its first 100 day action plan.

Currently, there are only two companies – BCCL and Central Coalfields Ltd, both subsidiaries of CIL – that produce coking coal in the country and India has to rely heavily on imports due to the high amount of ash content in the coal produced indigenously. To obtain coking coal – used in the steel industry, the percentage of ash should be less than 12%. Presently, India imports approximately 70% of its coking coal requirement.

In a similar move to reduce coking coal imports, Central Coalfields is building five new washeries which will be able to reduce the ash content in the produced coal to 16% from the current 19%, the company’s director (technical) Ram Baboo Prasad had earlier said.