India’s Ministry of Coal has identified four new coking coal blocks which will be put up for bidding in the next round of auctions, a government official said on Thursday, December 29.
The official said that, before putting them up for auction, the Central Mine Planning and Design Institute Limited (CMDIL), a subsidiary of state-run Coal India Limited (CIL), would prepare a geological report within the next few months.
At the same time, CIL has drawn up plans to increase raw coking coal production from existing mines by 20 million mt per year within 2025.
Additionally, CIL has offered eight coal blocks where mining had been discontinued to private miners, which would bring in additional production of 2 million mt per year at peak rated capacity (PRC), the official said.
The projects are in line with the ministry’s target of achieving 140 million mt of domestic coking coal production by 2030 to support the steelmaking capacity creation target of 300 million mt per year, against current domestic coking coal production of 52 million mt per year.