State-owned Coal India Ltd (CIL) on Friday said it has crossed the annual coal production target of 700 million tonne (MT) in 2022-23. As of Thursday, March 30, the company produced 700.4 MT of coal, up 13 per cent over 619.8 MT on the same date a year ago, the miner said in a statement.
"CIL has breached its challenging production target of 700 MT one day ahead of FY23 closure. CIL is likely to end FY23 with 703.6 MT output going by the current rate of production. It produced 622.6 MTs in the previous fiscal year," it added. The stiff target of 700 MTs was a challenging task but all our subsidiaries went the extra mile to chip in their best, the statement noted. The production increased by 81 MT year-on-year in FY23. It outstrips, by nearly two-fold, the previous high of 44.5 MT hike reported in 2015-16.
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Odisha-based CIL subsidiary Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL) production rose by 25 MT year-ion-year to 192.8 MT in FY23. It accounted for 27.5 per cent of CIL's total production. South Eastern Coalfields Ltd's production increased by 24.3 MT to 166 MT as of March 30 from 142.5 MT last year.
CIL's overburden removal (OBR) rose to a new record of 1,651.7 M.Cu.M (million cubic metres) as of March 30. The previous high was 1,362 M.Cu.M. "Growth in OBR is an encouraging indicator and bodes well for CIL in ramping up the production in the first quarter of FY24, especially when faced with a challenging target of 780 MT. Exposing the coal seam for future readiness, OBR facilitates faster coal extraction," the statement said.
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