State-run Coal India will start construction of the country's largest coal mine in 2022 as India struggles to keep up with surging power demand, said Vinayak Jamwal, a spokesman for coal ministry Mahanadi Coalfields, a new Siarma in eastern Odisha state, officials said. The mine's production will gradually increase, reaching a capacity of 50 million tonnes in about five to seven years. Production will initially start in the October-December quarter, with an annual output of around 2 million to 5 million tonnes, Jamwal said.

Coal India's record output has been a bright spot in ending India's worst power crisis in more than six years, as a heatwave boosted demand for electricity and forced the government to reverse a policy of cutting coal imports. India also plans to reopen closed mines in response to the crisis, but did not say how the drive to increase coal would meet the country's emissions targets, but it reiterated plans to install 450GW of renewable energy by 2030.

India's current total power generation is 401 GW, of which 111.4 GW is renewable energy. Jamwal said infrastructure work was underway at Siarmal, an open-pit mine built in a partially forested area. No Indian mine has produced more than 50 million tonnes of coal in a year. India's largest Gevra coal mine is targeting production of 52 million tonnes in 2022.

Coal India plans to open two more mines with a combined annual capacity of 7 million tonnes in the financial year ending March 2023, adding that plans to open seven new mines this financial year are unlikely to materialize. Coal India, which accounts for 80% of India's domestic output, has struggled to deliver enough coal to utilities to keep them at their lowest inventory levels in at least nine years, at a time when electricity use is growing at the fastest pace in about 40 years. Produce 700 million tons of coal in 2022 and plan to reach 1 billion tons of annual production by 2025.Editor/XingWentao