Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of state-owned Coal India Limited (CIL) and India’s sole coking coal producer, will invest an estimated $34 million to construct its own railway lines at pitheads to enable it to evacuate an additional 25 million mt per year of coking coal to steel mills, company officials said on Wednesday, May 31.
The officials said that the railway lines will be constructed by BCCL while wagons will be operated by state transporter Indian Railways, adding that linkage at the pithead will ensure faster evacuation and delivery of additional coking coal to steel mills across the country.
Building of higher coking coal evacuation capacity is also imperative against the backdrop of the Indian government earlier this year allocating two new coal blocks to BCCL, the officials added.
BCCL’s current coking coal production is estimated at around 35 million mt per year.