NMDC, which has hitherto focused on mining minerals like iron ore, copper, dolomite, magnesite and so on, has got a major boost to its efforts to diversify into coal with the government allocating two coal mines to it.
The Rohne and Tokisud North mines are are located at Hazaribagh District of Jharkhand.
“The Rohne coal block has extractable reserves of 191 million tonnes and planned production capacity of 8 million tonnes per annum. The Tokisud North coal block has extractable reserves of about 52 . million tonnes of thermal coal and planned production capacity of 2.32 million tonnes per annum,” said the company, formerly known as National Mineral Development Corporation.
Both the blocks are located at distance of about 10-15 kms aerially.
Rohne coal block has coking coal which may require washing of coal for feeding into steel plant and hence NMDC is exploring the possibility for setting up of coal washeries, the company added.
“NMDC is going to execute allotment agreement of Tokisud North coal block on 24.12.2019. The Rohne coal block allotm_ent agreement would be executed as per the directives from Ministry of Coal with respective execution date,” it said.
NMDC recently set up a coal division at Hyderabad exclusively for coal assets in India. It will cater to both the steel and the power sectors.
The company, listed in India, is controlled by ministry of steel, government of India.
It is India’s largest iron ore producer and exporter producing more than 35 million tons of iron ore from 3 fully mechanized mines in Chhattisgarh and Karnataka.
It also operates the only mechanized diamond mine in the country at Panna in Madhya Pradesh.