Rare earth elements found in open cast mines of Singareni Collieries in T’gana

The Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL), a public sector undertaking of Telangana, confirmed the presence of high-value rare earth elements (REEs) in its coal overburden (waste soil) and fly ash of its thermal power plant of its open cast coal mines in different parts of state, officials familiar with the development said.

- Srinivasa Rao Apparasu

Every day, thousands of tonnes of soil waste are dug out of the open cast mines of Singareni in various places, besides fly ash produced in the company’s 1200 MW thermal power plant in Pegadapalli in Mancherial district.

“For quite some, we have been planning to make the best use of fly ash generated in the power plant. A few months ago, we got this ash was tested at Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology lab in Bhubaneswar and to our pleasant surprise, we got the confirmation about the presence of certain rare earth elements,” SCCL chairman and managing director N Balaram told HT.

The soil heaps resulting from open cast mining operations at Kallur in Khammam and Ramagundam in Peddapalli district were also tested and they were found to contain rare earth elements.