KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) – Indian major Coal India Limited (CIL) would award between 10 and 15 contracts to private mining and mining services companies to develop assets under a private-public-partnership model evolved by the Indian government.

Several Australian, British and Chinese companies have shown interest in developing some of the existing and new coal assets of CIL, India’s Junior Coal Minister Pratil Prakashbapu Patil said.

“Two Australian companies, Leighton Welspun Contractors Private of the Leighton Group and Theiss India Private, a subsidiary of Theiss Australia, had participated in discussions and provided comments on the draft request-for-qualifications document for selection of mine developers and operators for opencast mines of CIL,” the Junior Minister said.

In the case of underground mines, the Minister said the government-owned CIL had selected British and Chinese companies for mine development projects.

BBB Mining Consultants, the British integrated mining solutions company, had linked up with India’s AMR, based in Hyderabad in southern India, to develop the Kapuria underground mining project of Bharat Coking Coal Company Limited (BCCL), a subsidiary of CIL and the country’s sole coking coal producer. The project would have a capacity to produce two-million tons a year of coking coal.

To develop the Moonidih underground coal assets, UK-based Bucyrus had entered into a collaboration with Indu Projects and Singareni Collieries Company Limited, a majority Indian government-owned miner, to develop the mine to produce 2.5-million tons a year of coking coal.

Among the Chinese mine developers which have concluded agreements were Beijing Huayu Engineering Company, which, along with Kolkata-based MINOP Innovative Technologies, would develop BCCL's two-million-ton-capacity Muraidih underground project, and China Coal Overseas Development Company, which would take up the Jhanjra second-phase longwall mine, which had a capacity of 1.7-million tons a year.