India’s sole coking coal producer Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Coal India Limited (CIL), plans to increase production to 50 million mt per year by 2020 from present levels of 36 million mt, a company official said on Wednesday, November 18.
The BCCL official said that the incremental increase in production will be achieved through modernization and upgrade of the majority of the underground mines which account for the entire coking coal availability in the country.
According to the official, modernization of the underground mines will involve installation of new and upgraded longwall mining. He said that one longwall of 1 million mt per year was already installed at the Moondih mines in the current financial year and another longwall with an annual capacity of 1.7 million mt per year at Jhanjhra underground mines will be completed within the current financial year. Three more longwalls with a combined capacity of 6.5 million mt per year capacity are under implementation.
India imports 30-33 million mt of coking coal per year, which meet about 50 percent of domestic coking coal demand from local steel mills.