Coal India eyes lower costs of ops in 2023

Coal Insights Bureau

Coal India is aiming for “economy of operations” and “operational efficiency” to ensure that electricity is available at “just price” to the people of India.

“With 80 percent of our supplies directed towards coal-fired plants and three-quarters of country’s power generation being coalbased, our goal should be to make electricity available at just price to the citizen of the country. This spells out the need for greater operational efficiency and economy of operations,” Pramod Agrawal said in his letter to the employees of the company.

“Our role is to supply assured energy at affordable costs. There is sizeable scope for energy expansion in the country for next few decades where we have a greater responsibility shoulder. We have skilled people, decades of core competence, technological wherewithal and a sense of purpose to do so. Let our historic pledge be meeting the country’s energy demand, customer friendliness, environmental responsibility, doctrine of zero-accident potential and high degree of energy efficient mechanization,” Agrawal added.

The Chairman asked employees to aim for loftier heights in the last quarter of the financial year and make FY23 momentous by shattering the annual targets as well.

“And not rest there. Once we achieve 700 million tons (mt) production target, that should be a benchmark base for further growth,” he added in his letter.

All three performance metrics –production of 479 mt, supply of 508 mt, and Over Burden Removal of 1,155 MCuM till December outperformed their corresponding progressive targets, Agrawal pointed out.

“We stand at the cusp of a historic performance in production, off-take and OBR,” CMD said.

The impressive scope of the targets they were able to surpass is what makes this milestone unique. But much more work must still be done, the message stated.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, CIL will produce a billion tons of coal by 2025-2026 as opposed to the initial plan of 2023-2024.

The coal ministry previously predicted that CIL would produce 700 mt of coal for the current fiscal year, with an additional 200 mt of production coming from other sources.

Ketki turns first UG mine to be developed by MDO

On January 10, Ketki Under Ground mine, belonging to South Eastern Coalfields Ltd, became the first operational UG mine to be developed via the MDO mode, SECL said recently.

An Memorandum of Understanding was signed and project awarded to SMS Ltd