New legislation to introduce competitive bidding for coal

October 15th, 2009 KOLKATA - State-owned Coal India Ltd (CIL) has raised the price of coal produced by its subsidiaries by an average of 11 percent effective from Oct 16, the company said here Thursday. "Such increase is being effected after a gap of almost two years.

September 7th, 2009 Massey Energy CEO blasts climate bill at WVa rallyHOLDEN, W.Va. — The chief executive of coal mining giant Massey Energy blasted supporters of climate-change legislation and other environmental issues affecting the coal industry at a free Labor Day concert and rally in southern West Virginia.

August 21st, 2009 LUCKNOW - Power generation in energy-starved Uttar Pradesh could see its electricity generation going down by a further 800 MW to 1,000 MW daily on account of poor quality of coal, officials say. Irked over the quality of coal, the state-owned power generation firm Uttar Pradesh Rajya Vidyut Utpandan Nigam has lodged a protest with the three main suppliers of the feedstock -- Bharat Coking Coal, Northern Coalfields and Central Coalfields -- the officials said.

August 12th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Engineering and construction major Larsen and Toubro Wednesday said it would wait for an opportune time to sell its holding in Satyam Mahindra, formerly Satyam Computer Services, even if the markets regulator waives the lock-in period on the shares. The lock-in period had been fixed because of a competitive bidding process for a controlling stake in the scam-hit IT major.

July 28th, 2009 KOLKATA - Nine private players are in the race for extracting coal from 18 abandoned underground mines belonging to three subsidiaries of the state-run Coal India Ltd (CIL), according to a top official. CIL had received expressions of interest from 17 companies for developing the mines, which have a total reserve of around 1,647 million tonnes.

July 20th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Coal shortage is crippling the power production of state-run NTPC Ltd, which has reported a loss of 126 million units in generation between April and June this year, a union minister said here Monday. "NTPC's power stations at Farakka, Kahalgaon, Sipat, Talcher and Korba were affected due to shortage of coal supply," Minister of State for Power Bharatsinh Solanki told the Rajya Sabha.

June 30th, 2009 BHUBANESWAR - India will soon get a coal index to track the coal price movement in the country. India's leading e-commerce company Mjunction Services Ltd will launch the index in the second week of July, a company official said Tuesday.

June 28th, 2009 Utah's deep coal operators under heavy regulationHELPER, Utah — Two years after a deadly Utah mine collapsed, the state's coal operators are backing away from rich coal reserves held deep under the ground. Coal mines have come under intense scrutiny in every part of the country, with the Mine Safety and Health Administration tripling fines against all coal mines last year.

June 15th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The government is "strongly considering" to allow commercial coal mining by private companies in a bid to bridge the demand-supply gap, Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal said Monday. "We are strongly considering to allow commercial coal mining by private firms," Jaiswal told reporters here.

April 9th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Petroleum Secretary R. S. Pandey on Thursday launched the eighth round of the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP), and said the offer would remain open for four months till August 10, 2009.

March 21st, 2009 NEW DELHI - About 40 percent of the country's road projects put up for competitive bidding have found no takers due to the economic slowdown, a Planning Commission member said here Friday. 'Of the 60 road projects that had been put up for competitive bidding, 40 percent received no bids,' Planning Commission member Kirit Parikh said.

March 13th, 2009 NEW DELHI - State-run Coal India Ltd has been allocated two coal blocks in the southeast African state of Mozambique, it was announced here Thursday. The formal intimation on the acquisition was sent by the Indian high commission in that country to Coal India recently, a government statement said.

February 4th, 2009 RAIPUR - Mineral-rich Chhattisgarh has hit another goldmine: a fresh discovery of 90 million tonnes of coal and a little over 22 million tonnes of iron ore. 'Deposits of 50 million tonnes of coal have been found in Korba district and 40 million tonnes of coal in Raigarh district,' says the Economic Survey of the state government.

February 2nd, 2009 KOLKATA - Coal India chairman Partha Sarathi Bhattacharyya Tuesday hinted at hiking coal prices, but said any such decision would be taken after ensuring that end-users remained globally competitive. With the company incurring a burden of Rs.52 billion (Rs.5,200 crore) for paying arrears since July 2006 - when the recently-signed eighth national wage settlement for Coal India employees came into retrospective effect - and for making provisions for the enhanced gratuity bill.

December 25th, 2008 RANCHI - Efforts are going on to get coal blocks in three countries, including the US, said minister of state for coal Santosh Bagrodia here Friday. 'We are making efforts to get coal blocks in the United States, Indonesia and Mozambique.