India’s sole coking coal producer, Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL), the wholly-owned subsidiary of state-run Coal India Limited (CIL) produced 2.37 million mt of coking coal during the April-September period of the current year, achieving a marginal growth of 1.8 percent over the corresponding period of the previous year, company officials said on Monday, October 8.
The company sources said that BCCL’s ability to ramp up production in the coming years will be severely limited, with CIL taking a decision to close down at least 53 underground mines during the coming fiscal year as many of them had become unsafe or were nearing the end of their life.
Although the number of such mines to be closed down is yet to be determined, the decision by CIL will impact BCCL the most as all its operational mines are underground and a few of them have been categorized as unsafe, the sources added.