The country’s domestic raw coking coal output may touch 140 million tonnes (mt) by 2030 from the present 51.7mt, the coal ministry said on Saturday. Coking coal is an essential raw material for the production of iron and steel.

“With transformative measures taken by the ministry of coal, domestic raw coking coal production is likely to reach 140mt by 2030,” the ministry said in a statement. To further increase the output of raw coking coal, the Centre has auctioned 10 coking coal blocks to the private sector, with a peak rated capacity of 22.5mt during the last two years. Most of these blocks are expected to start production by 2025.

The ministry has also identified four coking coal blocks and the Central Mine Planning and Design Institute will finalise the geological reserves for four to six new coking coal blocks in the next two months, the statement said.

These blocks may be offered in subsequent rounds of sale for the private sector to further step up domestic raw coking coal supply. Coal India Ltd (CIL), which accounts for over 80 per cent of domestic coal output, plans to increase raw coking coal production from existing mines by up to 26mt and has identified nine new mines with peak rated capacity of about 20mt by FY2025.

CIL has offered six discontinued coking coal mines out of the total 20 such mines through an innovative model of revenue sharing to the private sector with an expected peak rated capacity of 2mt, according to the statement.

The country produced 51.7mt of raw coking coal during 2021-22, which is 15 per cent more compared with 44.8mt during FY2021. Domestic raw coking coal production continues to witness an increasing trend in the current fiscal as well with the production of 8.3mt according to the figures up to last month, which is 20 per cent more compared with 6.9mt during the same period of the previous year.