Message Mer 15 Fév 2012 10:42

Maamba has 60m reserve tonnes

By Business Reporter

NAVA Bharat-owned Maamba Collieries Limited (MCL) has a projected minable reserve of about 60 million tonnes of coal from the active mining area comprising 10 blocks.

Nava Bharat chief executive officer Ashwin Devineni said the company would confirm the coal reserves through drilling and geological assessment in the 10 mining blocks.

MCL estimates that the active mining area comprising 10 blocks would yield a minable reserve of about 60 million tonnes of coal with matching quantities of thermal grade coal.

The company plans to set up a thermal power plant which will generate300 megawatts to feed the national grid.

Mr Devineni said the contractor GRN was expected to deliver about 3million tonnes of raw high-grade coal to Coal Handling and Processing Plant over the next three years prior to the commissioning of the power plant.

He said MCL had commenced the mining operations through the contractor,GRN Constructions Zambia who deployed Heavy Eart Moving Equipment while on its own it had started sales of various grades of coal in small qualities.

Mr Devineni said MCL expects to ramp up the washed coal sales from about 30,000 tonnes a month initially in April 2012 to about 50,000 tonnes during the later part of 2012.

It would further build up the capacity to about 80,000 tonnes a month in 2013/14 in line with the growth of the market within the domestic and the region.

"Our contractor GRN has mobilised two sets of heavy earth moving equipment comprising bull dozers, trucks, graders, excavators, compactors and will be adding another 20 to the fleet of equipment by this month end," he said.