With Rs 12,000 crore investment, SECL aims to make Gevra coal mine largest in the world

South Eastern Coalfields Limited's (SECL) Gevra opencast coal mine became Asia's largest coal producing mine in FY 2023 with a production of 50.82 million tonnes (MT), according to latest data from Coal Controller Organisation (CCO) accessed by Moneycontrol.

With this, the miniratna PSU under Coal India Limited (CIL) is now aiming to make Gevra the largest coal mine in the world in the ongoing financial year with a total investment of Rs 11,816.40 crore, SECL's Chairman-cum-Managing Director (CMD) Prem Sagar Mishra told Moneycontrol. So far, Rs 7,500 crore have already been spent on the expansion project.

Gevra is located in the Korba district of Chhattisgarh. Of the 67 caol mines operated by SECL, 40 are in Chhattisgarh and 27 are in Madhya Pradesh.

"The total expansion plan for which we are seeking environmental clearance (EC) is 70 MT. Currently the EC for Gevra mine is for 52.5 MT only. On June 6, we held a mega public hearing with the locals for the expansion plan. We hope the EC will come through in the next three months or so, after which we can begin with scaling up our coal production from the Gevra mine," Mishra said.

He said for FY 24, SECL has set a target of 60 MT coal production in Gevra. Even with 60 MT coal production in the current financial year, it is likely that Gevra will become the world's largest coal mine.

"My aim is to take Gevra mine's production to 100 MT per annum and it is very much achievable," Mishra said. The notified reserves in the Gevra mine is as much as 900 MT, whereas the total expansion plan as of now is of 70 MT only.

A report compiled by CCO on June 9 stated that the North Antelope Rochelle mine in United States of America (USA) is currently the largest coal mine in the world. It produced 56.97 MT in 2021, though production data for 2022 was not available.

In Asia, the Sangatta coal mine in Indonesia was the largest in FY 2022 with a production of 47.5 MT. During the same year, India's Gevra coal mine produced 41.81 MT. However, in FY 2023, Gevra overtook the Sangatta coal mine with a production of 50.82 MT as against 40.70 MT from the latter, the CCO report stated.

CCO, a subordinate office under the ministry of coal, collects and maintains coal production data of all private and public sector coal mines in the country, apart from tracking global trends.

For the Gevra mine, the overall cost of production at 100 percent operating level (70 MT) has been worked out as Rs 566.02 per tonne, which would result in a profit of Rs 355.98 per tonne at the calculated average selling price of Rs 922.00 per tonne. The internal rate of return at 100 percent and 85 percent level of production works out to 42.16 percent and 28.45 percent, read its project report.

Mishra acknowledged that land acquisition remains the biggest hurdle in its coal mine expansion projects. "Obviously, we do not get the entire patch of land that is required at one go. We go bit by bit. In any case, land acquisition is a long drawn process as it involves hundreds or thousands of existing residents who need to be reached out to individually for relocation," he said.

A total 4781.798 hectare of land is required for the Gevra expansion project to 70 MT per annum. The current notified area under which operations are already taking place in the Gevra mine is 4,100 hectare. The project will provide direct employment to 4391 persons to affected population. To be sure, providing employment and other benefits apart from paying about 2x the price of land as per government notified rates to the locals/land owners is mandated under mining rules.

The coal from Gevra mine is of G11 grade and it has a gross calorific value of 4,000 which power-grade coal. It means, the coal from this mine is used in coal-fired thermal power plants such as those run by NTPC and state gencos.

The mine will also be one of the first few coal mines in India to have first mile connectivity, coal is transported primarily through conveyor belts instead of trucks and is loaded in rakes through silos.