Coal India’s exploration arm Central Mine Planning & Design Institute (CMPDIL) has added 7.8 billion tonne of coal to India’s proven reserves base in 2019-20, the largest addition in a year so far.
It also added 9.75 billion tonne of reserves to new resource category, which is a rough estimate based on preliminary exploration.
These involved detailed exploration on 128 blocks and regional exploration of 17 blocks for coal and lignite.
India’s proven coal reserve, based on detailed exploration, is estimated to be 155.6 billion tonne while indicated reserves were around 326 billion tonne as of April 2019.
In 2019-20, the exploration arm carried out 1.294 million mtr of drilling under detailed exploration against its target of 1.4 million mtr. It also carried out 1,16,000 mtr of drilling under promotional and regional exploration against its target of 1,53,000 mtr.
The exploration arm explores coal and lignite on behalf of the government and Coal India. It has also explored blocks offered by the Centre for commercial mining. The Centre has offered 41 blocks with a total reserve of 17 billion tonne that can produce 225 million tonne of coal a year.
CMPDIL has also prepared 32 project reports with production capacity addition of about 178 million tpa. These projects will be taken up in the near future by Coal India (CIL) and will aid the company in achieving its one billion tonne production target by 2024.