KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) – Coal India Limited (CIL) is undertaking three critical railway infrastructure projects that will enable the miner to efficiently evacuate 282-million tons a year of production.

According to a directors’ report of the company, the railway infrastructure projects form part of the miner’s ‘Synergy for Energy’ initiative, which aims to grow production and avoid the piling up of stock as a result of infrastructure deficiencies at some of its largest operating wholly owned subsidiaries.

The three railways links will be constructed by joint ventures between CIL subsidiaries, Indian Railways and Ircon International Limited – an engineering construction and consultancy organisation under the Railway Ministry.

The Tori-Shivpur-Kathotia broad gauge line will have the capacity to evacuate about 32-million tons a year of coal from the North Karanpura mines, which CIL subsidiary Central Coalfields operate.

The Jharsuguda-Barpali-Sardega rail link will enable Mahanadi Coalfields to evacuate 70-million tons a year of coal, while the 180-million-ton-a-year East Rail Corridor and East West Rail Corridor will transport coal from the Mand-Raigarh, Korba and Gevra mines under South Eastern Coalfields.

These projects will be part funded in the current financial year, during which CIL is aiming to complete a total capital expenditure (capex) of $1.33-billion, according to the director’s report.

Outlining CIL’s strategic growth plans, the report states that an additional $1.015-billion of capex will be riding on various diversification projects, which include the construction of a super critical thermal power plant, ongoing revival of a defunct fertiliser plant, a coal gasification plant and the launch of a coalbed methane project.

In the current financial year, CIL has set a production target of 600-million tons to achieve production growth of 8.3% over the previous financial year, while the target for 2018/19 will be 773.70-million tons.

However, as per data released by the miner last week, during the April to July 2017 period, CIL produced 155.4-million tons, which was about 12-million tons below the target set for that period.

On a more positive note, the miner reported improvements in offtake figures, with CIL selling 181.69-million tons during the April to July period, compared with 174.66-million ton during the corresponding months of the previous period.