The Adriyala longwall underground mining project of Telengana-based Singareni Collieries Company is expected to start commercial production in a month.
Saturday, October 11th was a red-letter day for the USD 190 million project as coal started coming up the conveyor belt from the underground mine. The project is now being test-run.
Initially, the mine will produce around 1.5 million tonnes of coal per annum, nearly 0.5 million tonne more than the largest underground mines operated by Coal India and Monnet Ispat in the country produce.
Over time, Adriyala’s production will increase to a record 2.8 million tonne per annum, adequate to generate around 500 MW electricity at NTPC’s Ramagundam power station in Telangana.
Underground mines are environmentally more sustainable than opencast mines, the mainstay of mining operations in India.
Globally, there are many underground mines with 5 million tonne per annum capacity and above, especially in Australia and China. The largest of them, at Raspadskaya, Russia, produces 8.9 million tonne per annum. Anglo-Australian multinational BHP Billiton now proposes to open a 10 million tonne per annum mine in the fertile Liverpool plains in Australia.
Opencast mines can be much larger. CIL Gevra mine in Chhattisgarh is Asia’s largest opencast project with 35 million tonne per annum capacity. And, there are many opencast mines of over 10 million tonne per annum in India.
Lack of long-term planning, need for rapid increase in coal production and low technology acquisition have shifted the focus from underground mining to opencast production.
In 2013-14, CIL produced only 36 million tonne coal from underground, less than 8% of its total production of 464 million tonne. The scene is now up for some change.
Source: Business Line
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