City-based public sector enterprise Western Coalfields Limited (WCL) on Thursday signed an agreement with a private player Xenergies Mines Private Limited (XMPL) to restart its AB Incline mine located in Sillewara under the company’s Nagpur area. The mine was closed since February 2018. The agreement was signed in a function presided over by Chairman and Managing Director of WCL J P Dwivedi. Director Technical A K Singh and Director of XMPL Shailendra Agrawal signed the agreement. Technical Secretary of CMD Tarun Kumar Shrivastava; General Manager of Nagpur Area of WCL Sunil Kumar; General Manger (CMC) A P Singh and Project Head of XMPL Gurcharan Singh were also present on the occasion. Interestingly, the private players found mining at the same location economically feasible after the public sector undertaking company stopped operations terming it ‘non-feasible’

 

. As per the agreement XMPL, a special purpose vehicle (SVP) will extract coal, undertake rehabilitation and development of the mine and manage it. The agreement will be for 25 years based on revenue sharing basis. The target of the present agreement is to produce 6.55 million tonnes of coal in 25 years. According to the company officials, the mine is expected to produce 3 lakh tonnes of coal per year. It is important to note that it is the second such attempt of the WCL to rope in a private player to restart its closed mines. Earlier, the company had roped in another private player for the commissioning, rehabilitation, development and operation of its closed underground mine.