Singareni to start coal production from Naini, 3 surface mines this year

Due to increase in coal demand, the SCCL has drawn up plans to take up 10 new coal mines and increase its coal output to 850 lakh tonnes per annum within three years

Hyderabad: In an effort to increase coal production, the Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) will start production from the Naini coal block and three other surface mines in Odisha in the current year.

The company is making efforts to start coal production at Naini coal block from March, VK Coal Mine in New Gudem and Goleti surface mine in Bellampalli area from June and JK OC Expansion (Rompedu) mine in Yellandu area from July. Due to increase in coal demand, the SCCL has drawn up plans to take up 10 new coal mines and increase its coal output to 850 lakh tonnes per annum within three years. The mining company has targeted 700 lakh tonnes this fiscal.

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The company has set a target of 100 lakh tonnes for Naini Coal block (Odisha), 53 lakh tonnes for VK coal mine, 35 lakh tonnes for Goleti surface mine and 25 lakh tonnes for the JK OC Expansion (Rompedu) mine.

SCCL Chairman and Managing Director N Sridhar, at a review meeting on Wednesday, directed officials to finalise the Overburden (OB) contracts after obtaining forest, environmental and other permissions related to these mines. He also asked them to get all the permissions for the opening of MVK OC and other mines in Bellampalli area in 2023-24.

Calling for production of 30 lakh tonnes of coal per year from the recently opened GDK coal mine, 26 lakh tonnes from the Indaram open cast and 22.5 lakh tonnes from the KK OC mine, Sridhar also asked officials to ensure that the company undertook at least 10 projects in the next five years so as to increase coal production.

Naini Coal Block

• Location: In Angul District of Odisha

• Area: Spread over 912.799 hectares

• Potential: Estimated high grade coal reserves of 340 million tonnes

• Coal production to start from March

The Goleti Opencast Mine

• Planned to produce average of 2.6 Million Tonnes (3.5MT at peak) of coal per annum with a life of 20 years

• Coal production to start from June

VK Coal mine project

• An opencast cum underground mine; is an amalgamation of existing Goutham Khani opencast mine

• Coal production to start from June

JK OC Expansion (Rompedu) Mine

• An operating opencast project located near Sudimalla village in Yellandu of Bhadradri Kothagudem

• Covers an area of 1.50 Sq.Km

• Coal production to start from July