KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) – Coal India Limited’s (CIL's) big dream of a one-billion-tonne production target by 2020 could be in jeopardy, with government officials skirting the issue.

Coal Minister Piyush Goyal last week told Parliament that CIL would invest some $9.7-billion over the next five years; however, no mention was made by the Ministry on whether this investment would be riding on existing projects or new ones which would be required to achieve the higher production target.

At the time of announcing the one-billion-tonne production target, the Ministry claimed that around 60 to 100 new coal mining projects would be required to reach the target set for 2020.

The capital investment outlined by the Minister was also dramatically lower than the $20-billion to $25-billion CIL capital investment announced by the Coal Ministry in May.

In terms of volumes, the Ministry informed Parliament that CIL’s production would be around 908-million tonnes a year by 2019/20, up from the current 494-million tonnes a year, but a good 100-million tonnes a year short of its stated target.

The government has made no official statement on the revision of the projected production target, but experts and analysts believe the new production figures are more realistic.

“I would be very happy to see CIL production at 800-million tonnes a year by 2020,” former chairperson and CIL CEO Partha Bhattacharyya told Mining Weekly Online last month.

“Aiming for the year-on-year growth of 15% necessary to achieve one-billion tonnes a year production seems a tall target for CIL. A sustained and coordinated effort by all stakeholders, federal and state governments, Indian Railways and all concerned ministries – though very challenging and unlikely to happen overnight – could push CIL production growth to 10%, compared with the 7% achieved so far,” Bhattacharyya said.

Details provided by the Coal Ministry indicated that CIL’s production would increase from 550-million tonnes a year in the current year to between 597-million and 600-million tonnes in 2016/17. Production was, thereafter, expected to increase to 660-million tonnes in 2017/18 and to 773.7-million tonnes in 2018/19.

By 2019/20, the miner would produce some 908-million tonnes of coal.

CIL missed its 2014/15 production targets by some 3%, producing only 494-million tonnes, compared with the 507-million-tonne target set by the government.