Coal India (CIL) had announced an underground coal gasification project for which it had asked various companies to bid. Earlier the last date for submission of bid was February 1o, but now on the request of several companies CIL has extended the submission date to February 28.

CIL being the country’s biggest miner had put up two of its coal blocks on offer to be developed for underground coal gasification. On the request of various contenders and consequently lesser number of bids pushed the company to extend the deadline for submitting bids for underground coal gasification project.

One of the two blocks put to offer is Thesgora C block, located in Pench-Kanhan coalfield in Chindwara district of Madhya Pradesh, falls under the command area of Western Coalfields (WCL). The other block is Kaitha block, under Central Coalfields (CCL) command area, is located in the Ramgarh coalfield in the Ramgarh district of Jharkhand.

The company has formed a layout plan for all the participants who will offer bid. Company is inviting private players to develop the blocks and produce gas from them for a period of 25 yrs.

CIL assigned first two years for exploration and preparation of mining plan and the next three years blocks would be run to produce gas from them and this period will be on pilot basis. After passing these five years, these companies will run the blocks for next 20 yrs. The firm will be exclusively responsible for producing and transporting the gas to the desired players.