Team News Riveting
Coal India Limited (CIL) had designed a mega plan to ramp up production through modernisation of equipment.
The state-run miner had awarded contract to Belaz, the Belarus based mining equipment manufacturer, for purchasing 96 Dumpers of 240 Ton capacity.
Country largest coal producer had issued a letter of award of Rs.2,900 crore to the firm of Eastern Europe. The move is aimed to ramp up production and productivity besides modernizing its equipment. The Maharatna Company’s Board has given its nod to close the deal.
The amount for the purchase of the Dumpers would be met out of the company’s own finances. Dumpers are primarily used in opencast mines and aid in the transport of bulk materials like over burden, which is an important performance criterion.
The purchase package includes the cost of the Dumpers and spares for eight years including the one year warranty period. Belaz bagged the contract through a global tender process.
The first batch of 6 Dumpers would start rolling in within eight months of signing of the contract. Thereafter, on CIL’s green signal of their performance the remaining quantity would be delivered in batches of 4 every month.
“This move is in line with improving our production and productivity in opencast mines” stated a senior company executive.
The latest addition of these 96 Dumpers to CIL’s heavy earth moving machinery fleet would be deployed in South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL) taking the total tally of its 240 Ton Dumpers to 162, with 66 previously in operation. 240 Ton Dumpers are of the highest capacity in the country presently and in CIL they are deployed only in SECL.
84 of the 96 dumpers would be put into operation in the Gevra project and the remaining 12 in Kusmunda. Both are mega opencast projects of SECL. Once deployed, Gevra’scount of 240 Ton Dumpers would swell to 116, with 32 already existing. The number would go up to 32 in Kusmunda with 20 currently operational.
Laying emphasis on modernization and replacement of its aging equipment, CIL has earlier procured 77 Dumpers of 150 Ton Capacity from Belaz for Gevra project. To be operationalized in five OC projects of Northern Coalfields Limited (NCL), in a first, CIL has ordered 190 Ton capacity Dumpers numbering 102 from Caterpillar. While NCL projects account for 84 of these 102, the rest 18 are deployed in Rajmahal project of Eastern Coalfields Limited.
SECL, is the largest coal producing subsidiary of CIL which contributed to 25% of CIL’s total coal output of 602 Million Tonnes in 2019-20. Close to 61% of SECL’s total coal production is derived through opencast mines where the Dumpers play a productive role. Incidentally, SECL also contributed to 47% of CIL’s total UG production during 2019-20.
