Ranchi | April 17, 2017: The Central Coalfields Limited (CCL) on Sunday announced that it has recorded its highest-ever yearly coal production in the 2016-17 financial year.
The Ranchi-based Central PSU produced 67.04 million tonnes (MT) of coal in the previous fiscal and announced a turnover of Rs 15,000 crore. In 2015-16 fiscal, the company produced 61.32 MT of coal.
The company also achieved its best figures so far in coal off-take and over-burden removal. It removed 102.6 million cubic metres and recorded a coal off-take of 60.9 MT despite facing difficulties till the third quarter.
The Miniratna company on Sunday gave the highlights of its financial health in the 2015-16 fiscal. In 2015-16, the company's net worth was Rs 5,973 crore and its turnover was Rs 13,659 crore. The equity capital of the company was Rs 940 crore at this time.
The company, which is upbeat after its double digit growth in a financial year for the third consecutive time, has set itself a target of producing 133.5 MT coal in the 2019-20 fiscal. It aims to produce 80 MT coal from its ongoing and new mining projects in the 2017-18 fiscal.
The coal major attributed its performance to the partial operationalisation of the 70 MT per annum (MTPA)-capacity Magadh open cast coal project, 35 MTPA-capacity Amrapali open cast coal project and three other mining projects which were held up for more than 11 years. It also aims to reduce transportation cost of coal in coming months once Piparwar-McLuskeyganj railway line is operational.
Chairman and managing director of CCL, Gopal Singh, said the company was able to successfully maintain low production cost, which is "still at par with the production cost of 2012-13 FY in absolute sense".
The Central PSU is exploring the feasibility of taking up the Union coal ministry's ambitious coal to liquid (CTL) project in its command areas. "The CTL requires coal of high calorific and low ash content quality - a factor which the company is still trying to work out," Singh said.
Apart from the CTL project, the CCL is working on a project where it will tie up with the state water supply department to provide drinking and irrigation water from its abandoned mines to the human settlements in vicinity.
(Source: http://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/)