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Coal ministry wants CBM mines back |
NEW DELHI: The coal ministry wants to
take back the mines that were offered to the oil ministry for tapping gas
trapped in layers of coal - called CBM, or coal bed methane projects - on the
ground that companies have not made much progress even 10 years after they were
given these acreages and the country needs more coal to fuel the fast pace of
economic growth.
The two ministries together have so far auctioned 26
mines spread over 13,600 sq kms under the CBM policy. These mines were
identified about a decade back when it was estimated that coal from such
acreages would be needed 15 years later. But the pace of economic growth in the
last 5-6 years has increased demand for coal for which these mines need to be
brought on stream much earlier, minister of state for coal Sriprakash Jaiswal
says in a letter to oil minister Murli Deora.
Jaiswal says the CBM
companies have managed to trace an aggregate of only 6 tcf (trillion cubic feet)
gas in four mines and only one project has started commercial production.
"Progress has not been satisfactory in other mines...This could be due to low
confidence among operators based on the findings of exploration...,'' the letter
says in support of the suggestion to withdraw these acreages wherever coal
mining and CBM exploration work are seen overlapping.
When these
mines were delienated for CBM project, future peak coal demand was estimated at
1,000-1,200 million tonnes a year. But with the economy expanding at a rate in
excess of 5-6% in the last few years, this estimate has more than doubled to
2,000-2700 million tonnes a year in the next two decades. This means the CBM
mines cannot wait for companies to start pumping gas and work needs to be
started now to prepare them for mining.
An estimated Rs 95,000 crore
investment in opencast mining and Rs 23,000 crore in underground mining will be
required to attain the 2025 production target. Coal accounts for 55-60% of
India's energy basket. It is vital as rising population, expanding economy and a
quest for improved quality of life is expected to push energy usage to around
450 kgoe (kg oil equivalent) a year by 2010. Commercial primary energy
consumption in India has grown by about 700% in the last four decades. The
country's current annual per capita consumption of commercial primary energy is
about 350 kgoe, well below developed economies.
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