KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) - In a bid to shift focus on quality of supplies, producer Coal India Limited (CIL) was seeking global companies to construct and operate coal washeries.

According to a company official, since CIL intended to offer construction of a series of washeries across the country on a build-operate-maintain (BOM) basis, it was felt that global companies would be more efficient in constructing and operating these plants, and would enable the Indian miner to ramp-up supplies of washed coal to its users within the shortest gestation period.

The first such washery proposed by CIL would be a seven-million tonne a year non-coking coal plant in the eastern Indian province of Jharkhand, and the selection of a BOM contractor was expected to be finalised within the next two to three months, the official said.

The Coal Ministry has announced that CIL would be constructing 15 new coking and non-coking coal washeries, targeting the commissioning of at least three of these within the next three years.
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Tenders have been invited for construction of 12 washeries including 6 non coking coal washeries to ensure that CIL was able to give stronger focus on quality of supplies along achieving quantity targets,” Coal Minister Piyush Goyal said in a statement last week,.

Additional information on the total number of these washeries that would be set up by overseas companies, was not available, however, a Ministry official said that there were no fixed number of washeries earmarked for foreign companies and the government had an ‘open mind’, with the official adding that the participation of overseas coal washery operator would depend entirely on the terms and conditions offered under the BOM contracts.

CIL’s imperative for expanding washeries was the government directive that effective January 01, 2016, all coal supplies by the miner to thermal power plants would have to be mandatorily crushed to ensure higher efficiencies and plant load factor (PLF) of thermal power plants.

This was first in a series of measures planned by the Coal Ministry and starting October 2017, all domestic coal miners would have to compulsorily washed before transportation to thermal power plants.

CIL currently operated three non-coking coal washeries with combined capacity of 13.50-million tonnes a year. The private sector operated 31 non-coking coal washeries  in combined capacity of 87.20-million tonnes a year. The capacity use of these washeries averaged around 78%.