Friday, 10June 2011
By Ajoy K Das
KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) − India’s oldest coal miner Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) will focus on increasing productivity from existing underground mines by at least 30% to cope with dwindling growth opportunities in its mining hinterland.
The company also plans to diversify into thermal power generation, leveraging its experience in giving consultancy services to coal-based power projects in India.
Government-owned SCCL has submitted a production plan for 2012 to 2017 to India’s Coal Ministry, outlining its plans to increase yearly output from 52-million tons to 57-million tons.
The company would increase underground mining production by nearly 30% to 15.5-million tons a year by 2017, from around 12-million tons a year at present, while opencast output would rise only marginally to around 41.5-million tons a year from 40-million tons a year.
SCCL, the second-largest Indian coal miner after Coal India Limited, operates 13 opencast and 42 underground mines in the Godavari River Valley, in southern India. The Godavari River Valley basin is estimated to have a coal reserve of 8.79-billion tons along a single stretch of 350 km.
“I am expecting tougher days for coal operations in days to come. Therefore, I expect after four to five years, profits from coal operations to be very tight,” SCCL chairperson and MD, S Narsing Rao said.
SCCL will now focus on improving the contribution of underground mining and output per man shift as the company has almost reached a plateau in coal extraction and it is unlikely to report more than one-million to 1.5-million tons of incremental growth a year going forward, Rao said.
He attributed this to the restrictive and difficult geo-mining conditions of the Godavari Valley coalfields, known for deep forest reserves, lot of faults, poor grade coal and steep gradients.
The company had done as much as it could to control production costs. With 85% of underground mining costs fixed and 15% variable, SCCL said it would focus on mechanisation in underground mines to improve productivity.
SCCL plans to take up two long-wall mining projects at Adriyala, near Ramagundam, and Bhoopalapally, in the Warangal district, with capacity of 3.5-million tons a year and 2.5-million tons a year, respectively, with production starting within the next two years.
To diversify into power generation, the company will be looking at projects to construct coal pithead-based power generating plants, either through joint ventures or on its own, depending on access to virgin coal blocks that could be developed as captive sources of coal for the power plant. To mark a beginning, the company is considering construction of a 2 x 600 MW power project in Adilabad district in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
To pursue other diversification projects, SCCL has entered into an agreement with Carbon Energy, headquartered in Queensland, Australia, to collaborate in technologies for surface coal gasification, coal-bed methane and underground coal gasification projects.
Edited by: Mariaan Webb,sourced Miningweekly
By Ajoy K Das
KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) − India’s oldest coal miner Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) will focus on increasing productivity from existing underground mines by at least 30% to cope with dwindling growth opportunities in its mining hinterland.
The company also plans to diversify into thermal power generation, leveraging its experience in giving consultancy services to coal-based power projects in India.
Government-owned SCCL has submitted a production plan for 2012 to 2017 to India’s Coal Ministry, outlining its plans to increase yearly output from 52-million tons to 57-million tons.
The company would increase underground mining production by nearly 30% to 15.5-million tons a year by 2017, from around 12-million tons a year at present, while opencast output would rise only marginally to around 41.5-million tons a year from 40-million tons a year.
SCCL, the second-largest Indian coal miner after Coal India Limited, operates 13 opencast and 42 underground mines in the Godavari River Valley, in southern India. The Godavari River Valley basin is estimated to have a coal reserve of 8.79-billion tons along a single stretch of 350 km.
“I am expecting tougher days for coal operations in days to come. Therefore, I expect after four to five years, profits from coal operations to be very tight,” SCCL chairperson and MD, S Narsing Rao said.
SCCL will now focus on improving the contribution of underground mining and output per man shift as the company has almost reached a plateau in coal extraction and it is unlikely to report more than one-million to 1.5-million tons of incremental growth a year going forward, Rao said.
He attributed this to the restrictive and difficult geo-mining conditions of the Godavari Valley coalfields, known for deep forest reserves, lot of faults, poor grade coal and steep gradients.
The company had done as much as it could to control production costs. With 85% of underground mining costs fixed and 15% variable, SCCL said it would focus on mechanisation in underground mines to improve productivity.
SCCL plans to take up two long-wall mining projects at Adriyala, near Ramagundam, and Bhoopalapally, in the Warangal district, with capacity of 3.5-million tons a year and 2.5-million tons a year, respectively, with production starting within the next two years.
To diversify into power generation, the company will be looking at projects to construct coal pithead-based power generating plants, either through joint ventures or on its own, depending on access to virgin coal blocks that could be developed as captive sources of coal for the power plant. To mark a beginning, the company is considering construction of a 2 x 600 MW power project in Adilabad district in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
To pursue other diversification projects, SCCL has entered into an agreement with Carbon Energy, headquartered in Queensland, Australia, to collaborate in technologies for surface coal gasification, coal-bed methane and underground coal gasification projects.
Edited by: Mariaan Webb,sourced Miningweekly
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