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Singareni mines conversion pays

V. Rishi Kumar

KOTHAGUDEM, Oct.11

BY integrating four difficult underground mines -- GK (Gauthamkhani)-8, GK-9, GK-10 and GK-11 inclines -- the State-owned Singareni Collieries Company Ltd has converted them into a single opencast mine as it has the potential to offer about 2 million ton nes per annum.

As against an extraction of about 25 per cent from these underground mines, the conversion has enabled the company to increase the extraction level up to 90 per cent, thereby resulting in a profit of Rs 20 crore last fiscal.

Already, this fiscal, the integrated Gauthamkhani mine has achieved about 1.02 million tonnes (mt) of coal production against a target of 0.9 mt, thereby registering a profit of about Rs 23 crore in six months.

The Project In-charge at Gauthamkhani, Mr Anthony Raja, said with huge potential for the opencast mine, it is planned to reach out to 240 meters from about 85 metres now. The stripping ratio is higher for mines in Singareni as compared to mines in the no rthern region.

``While the stripping ratio is about five parts of mud to one part of coal here, it is about 1:1 in some other parts of the country. This makes both the task of coal mining more challenging but also relatively costlier. We are in the process of acquiring more lands,'' he said.

This Gauthamkhani opencast project was formulated to extract the remnant coal in the four former underground mines. Even after working for about 25 years on these four underground mines under the conventional methods, only 5 million tonnes (about 7 per c ent) out of about 80 million tonnes of total coal reserves has thus far been extracted.

With mineable reserves estimated at about 71 mt, the project was sanctioned at an estimated capital of Rs 415.93 crore at a rated capacity of about 2 million tonnes per year. Subsequently, the cost has been revised to Rs 158.94 crore by removing the `ove rburden' of hiring machinery.