ECL commissions first highwall mining project

Tuesday saw the successful commissioning of Eastern Coalfields Ltd.'s (ECL) first highwall mining project at West Bengal's Nimcha Colliery. According to the Coal India subsidiary, the project will boost ECL's production by 0.5 million tonnes annually. Once the economic strip limit has been reached in surface mining, additional coal can be extracted using highwall mining. According to the business, this technique offers a cost-effective method for unlocking coal reserves trapped in the highwall. It plans to generate 51 million tonnes of coal in the fiscal year 2023–2024, up significantly from the 35 million tonnes produced in the prior fiscal year. ECL has set aside 12,500 million in capital expenditures for the current fiscal year, compared to 11,040 million in 2022–2023, to support this higher production.