Singareni Collieries Company Ltd the state owned coal miner is investing INR 864 crore in one of the country's biggest underground mine at Adriyala near Ramagundam in Andhra Pradesh.

This project is being watched keenly by several coal miners in the country. Longwall technology based underground mines are operational but they are very small compared to what Singareni has now embarked on. This project will be operational by next year. The Longwall technology enables extracting coal in the form of slices of one meter and above and thereby enhances quality of output and shortens time to remove.

Mr S Narsing Rao CMD of Singareni Collieries said that “This is the country's biggest and first such project attempted by any miner in the country with scale and size using Longwall technology. It envisages production of 3.5 million tonnes of coal.”

Speaking on the sidelines of a conference on mining, Mr Rao said that “Majority of the country's mines are open cast and the several of the current underground mines are seeing depleting reserves. Therefore, we have taken this major project after considerable deliberations. The colliery has targeted production of 51.3 million tonnes during 2010-11 up from about 50.4 million tonnes last year. Traditionally, the targets set are conservative and we generally surpass them. The mining company closed last fiscal with a turnover of INR 7,200 crore.”

Asked about their partnership with AP Genco for production of coal for the latter's 600 MW plant, Mr Rao said they are ready to produce up to 2.2 million tonne of coal required for the project from Tadicherla mines. However, the power project will take time to complete and begin generation.

The company is in the process of re strategising for improving the productivity from existing mines while training attention of opening up of new mines, with accent on underground.

(Sourced from BL)