The Indian state-owned coal group Coal India Ltd (CIL) has approved 32 new coal mining projects in India, including 8 new projects and 24 expansion plans, which will have a combined peak output of 193 Mt/year. The projects, which are estimated to cost INR473bn (US$6.4bn), should produce 81 Mt/year from the financial year starting in April 2023. Most of the additional production capacity will come from three subsidiaries, namely South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL), Central Coalfields Limited (CCL) and Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL) that should produce an additional 167 Mt/year.
The company, which produced 602 Mt of coal in the fiscal year 2019-2020 (April 2019-March 2020), intends to reach an output of 1,000 Mt in 2023-2024. It has already sanctioned an additional capacity of 303.5 Mt/year (not including the new 193 Mt/year expansion plan).