Panel to speed up coal-to-liquid projects

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The government has constituted an inter-ministerial group (IMG) on coal-to-liquid (CTL) projects to ensure speedy allocation of coal blocks.This will not only iron out any differences involving various ministries and but would also evolve better guidelines for the technology.

The IMG is expected to undertake detailed scrutiny of applications, It will evaluate the applications received for allocation of coal blocks and will obtain feedback from stakeholders. The IMG will additionally make recommendations to the government and allocate coal on the basis of relative merit the received application.It will also monitor the progress of CTL projects and will also be suggest changes in the guidelines.

IMG has been given the right to invite experts for its assistance and the ministry of coal will provide the secretarial assistance to IMG. The Government had notified production of syn-gas obtained trough coal gasification (underground or surface) and coal liquefaction to be end use for the purpose of captive mining on July 2007.

However, after that the government has been quite passive in allocating coal blocks to interested private parties. South Africa’s Sasol, Tatas have evinced an interest in getting into CTL projects in India, but the Coal ministry is not too keen on allocating coal blocks to these entities. Tata-Sasol venture is likely to use Sasol’s patented Fischer Tropsch technology, which converts syn-gas, extracted from coal, into oil. This can be refined to produce diesel, naphtha, jet fuel, cooking gas and lubricants

A viable coal liquefaction project requires at least 20 million tonne of coal per year.”Coal India Ltd is not in a position to get into CTL. It has to first cater to the demands of sectors like power and cement. Private players are free to venture into CTL, but we do not see much viability of the process since the price of obtaining liquid from coal and prices of oil itself will not be very different,” said an official from the coal ministry. In past there were delays in the allocating coal blocks.

The IMG will iron out the differences and enable speedy allocation of coal blocks, he added.