With the new investment, the subsidiary plans to acquire drilling equipment to enhance its annual exploration capacity to ten lakh meters by 2010 from the present two lakh metres.
A K Singh, CMD of CMPDIL told Press Trust of India: “We have lined up an investment of Rs 108 crore for acquiring 18 new generation hydrostatic rigs from Sweden to replace old manual rigs. We have already received two such advanced machines.”
As reported, the move is in line with the Coal India’s plan to prove about 161 billion tonnes of coal reserves out of the estimated reserves of 267 billion tonnes in India. Coal India is also planning to introduce new exploration technologies for reserve estimation.
CMPDIL said that it is now training 100 more geologist and 200 drilling staff to meet enhanced drilling capacity.