Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL), a subsidiary of Coal India Limited (CIL), has signed a revenue sharing contract of about Rs 18.80 billion with Prabha Energy Private Limitedfor commercial extraction of coal bed methane (CBM).
The CBM would be extracted from Jharia Block Ispread over 27 square km, under leasehold area of BCCL. BCCL’s share in the cost of the land would be about Rs 3.70 billion while the rest will be met by the CBM developer, selected through a global bidding process. Jharia Block-I has a resource of around 25 bcm with an average production capacity of 1.3 mmscmper day once the commercial operation starts.The project is scheduled to be in three phases. The first phase of exploration will be of two-year duration from the signing of the contract followed by a pilot phase of three years. Thereafter the production phase is for thirty years.