Washed coal use set to increase

India is set to mimic the major coal producers of the world and make coal washing (to reduce ash content) an integral part of coal mining. Currently, about 10-15 per cent of Indian coal finds its way to a washery compared to over 80 per cent in other coal-rich countries like Australia.

"Increasing the quantity of coal that is washed is one of our top three priorities," said a senior coal ministry official.

To begin with, Coal India Ltd, the country's largest coal producer, has decided to set up coal washeries in all its upcoming opencast mines having a capacity of 2.5 million tonnes or more. "This will be done by associating private enterprises (on a build-own-operate basis) with core competence in coal washing," says a recent statement from the ministry.

Coal washing, which reduces the ash content to 34 per cent or less, is mandatory if the raw coal needs to be transported over a distance of 1,000 km from the coal mine. There is now a proposal to reduce this distance to 200 km, said an industry official.

The coal ministry aims to increase the washed coal production in the 11th Plan period (2007-2012) to 163 million tonnes "" an increase of more than 100 million tonnes over the present washing capacity.

Washing of coal would be a big environment-friendly step since over half of the country's installed generation capacity of 135,000 Mw is based on coal.

Incidentally, F-grade coal is used in power plants, which has about 40 per cent of ash content and has low burning efficiency (also referred to as calorific heat value).

Also, washed coal, which is also used in steel and cement plants, makes the power plant more efficient by increasing the plant load factor (PLF), says a former chairman of Mahanadi Coalfields, a subsidiary of Coal India Ltd (CIL).

"While washing adds to the cost of coal, it is more than offset by the increase in the efficiency of the coal used," said a coal consultant.

Not surprisingly, therefore, "there is a huge demand for coal washeries today because of acute shortage of capacity," says a power ministry official. In the case of ultra mega power plants (of 4,000 Mw each), use of washed coal is, in fact, mandatory.

All coal fired power plants in the vicinity of cities where pollution levels have reached critical levels are required to use washed coal only.

Currently, there are only about 25 coal washeries across the country, while coal production is over 430 million tonnes (last year). CIL operates 17 of these washeries (11 coking coal and 6 non-coking coal).

Some of the private players in the field include Gupta Coal, Global Washeries, Arayan Beneficiation and Spectrum Technologies-CLI Corporation. The private players are in the business of washing of non-coking coal only.