Oil ministry to identify coal areas in CBM blocks

In April,the coal ministry identified 54 coal blocks to be auctioned to state-run and private companies,but it has emerged that of these 54 blocks,15 are CBM mines which have substantial reserves of both gas and coal.

Now,to include these 15 blocks in the auction process,the coal ministry asked the oil ministry to demarcate the coal bearing areas of these CBM mines,relinquish them and hand them over for auction.

The oil ministry has to ensure that the blocks either explored or unexplored have been relinquished before surrendering them.

On May 27,coal secretary Sanjay Kumar Srivastava wrote to his petroleum ministry counterpart Vivek Rae asking him that the 15 blocks having mix of both the fuels should be relinquished early with demarcated boundaries.

The coal secretary also appended a list of the 15 CBM blocks falling in the overlapped areas,which includes blocks like Bishtupur-Dandeshwar of Essar Oil in Raniganj coalfields,Aluara block allocated to jointly to Coal India and ONGC and the Patasi block of Reliance Industries.

The government has so far allocated 33 CBM blocks in four rounds of bidding with an area size of 168 square kilometres of for CBM exploration.

The petroleum ministry is planning to conduct another round of auctions. The coal ministry has apprehensions about the prospect of the same set of blocks being allocated again,which would mean that coal reserves would remain unexplored. This is the reason it is planning for their demarcation.

Of these 33 blocks,three have been relinquished by their operators due to poor CBM prospects,while in the case of 9 CBM blocks,the operators have applied for exercising the exit option.

Petroleum minister Veerappa Moily told a Parliamentary committee that the estimated CBM resources are about 92 trillion cubic feet,of which less than 10 per cent has been so far explored.