Highwall Mining in India

Coal has been recognized as the most important source of energy for electricity generation in India. Currently the country produces more than 550 million tonnes of coal per year, more than 80% of which comes from opencast mines. The demand of coal is increasing day by day. Despite of having the fourth largest coal reserve and being the third largest coal producing country in the world, India needs to import coal to meet its growing requirement. Most of the opencast coal mines were started in early eighties in India. Many of these opencast mines are reaching their pit limits. A significant amount of coal is blocked in non workable thin seams, in the highwalls, below surface dwellings in these opencast mines. Highwall mining is a proven technology in USA and Australia to extract the blocked coal in thin non-workable seams and the coal blocked in the highwall of opencast mines. In USA, highwall mining contributes about 4.0 % share of total coal production. In India, the highwall mining is in the nascent stage. So far only two highwall mining are being worked; one by Singreni Collieries Company Ltd at RG II opencast project and other by South Eastern Coalfields Ltd at Sharda opencast mine . Many projects have been identified by major coal producing companies like Coal India Ltd, Tata Steel and Singreni Collieries Company Ltd. for introduction of this technology. The future of highwall mining in India is keyed to the success of these projects. This paper gives an overview of the highwall mining technology deployed at Sharda opencast mine where two thin seams are being extracted by this technology.