Coal India lines up big plans

Kolkata: The next two to three years will be eventful for Coal India Limited (CIL) as the public sector coal major has a host of significant projects in the pipeline.

CIL expects to go ahead with its proposed acquisition of mines in Australia, Indonesia and South-Africa through the special purpose vehicle(SPV) - Coal Ventures International, which includes four other PSUs.

It has lined up investment of Rs 14,000 crore to scale up production of coking as well as non-coking coal in its Jharia and Raniganj coalfields.

CIL has drawn a rehabilitation and resettlement plan for open cast projects and the proposal is now with the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) for approval.

The coal PSU has also planned to foray into power production with two of its subsidiaries- Northern Coalfields Limited (NCL) and Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL) to set up power plants through a joint venture (JV) with Neyveli Lignite, each with a capacity of 1,000MW, the total investment for these power projects being over Rs 11,000 crore.

CIL which restarted the e-auction of coal in November 2007 proposes to offload 15 million ton of coal per annum through forward e-auction of coal which is scheduled to kick off in February next year.

Apart from this, it also intends to supply washed coal to all its customers barring power plants using pit-head coal within the next three years.

CIL, which is likely to be conferred the Navratna status next year, is aiming to step up production of underground mines to 75 million ton by 2012, up from 43 million ton in 2006-07.

It has floated an SPV with BEML and Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) for revival of Mining and Allied Machinery Corporation (MAMC).