Exploration & Development
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EXPLORATION & DEVELOPMENT Indian Minerals Yearbook 2016 (Part-I : General Reviews) 55th Edition EXPLORATION & DEVELOPMENT (FINAL RELEASE) GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF MINES INDIAN BUREAU OF MINES Indira Bhavan, Civil Lines, NAGPUR – 440 001 PHONE/FAX NO. (0712) 2565471 PBX : (0712) 2562649, 2560544, 2560648 E-MAIL : [email protected] Website: www.ibm.gov.in February, 2018 4-1 EXPLORATION & DEVELOPMENT 4 Exploration & Development GOVERNMENT’S POLICY Registry will emcompass information of he National Mineral Policy, 2008 for non- leasehold and freehold areas in terms of Tfuel and non-coal minerals, introduced by the greenfield, brownfield and relinquished Government in replacement of the National Mineral areas, etc. Data filing will be rigorously Policy 1993 has laid enormous thrust on the applied and concession holders will be various aspects of the Mineral Industry, such as monitored. Lock-in arrangement will be regulation of minerals, role of State in mineral assured and the data will be released to development, survey & exploration, database of prospectors after integration. mineral resources & tenements, strategy of mineral * Prospecting being a high-risk venture, development, etc. Among other things, strong access to risk funds from capital markets emphasis has been laid on the following: will be facilitated. * Judicious exploitation and utilisation of This policy initiative is expected to encourage the country's mineral potentialities; carry greater involvement of Private Sector in areas of out systematic regional and detailed survey and exploration of minerals. exploration using state-of-the-art techniques in a time bound manner; The High-Level Committee constituted by the Emphasis on zero-waste mining and raise Government of India which brought out the this endeavour as a national goal; and National Mineral Policy, 2008 has recommended upgrading of mining technology in order amendments to the MMDR Act, 1957 with the to ensure exploration and utilisation of purpose of providing necessary initiatives to entire run-of-the-mine. attract investment and participation of private and public sectors in areas of exploration and * To make regulatory environment exploitation of minerals. conducive for private investment; Subsequently, the Mines and Minerals procedures for grant of mineral (Development and Regulation) Amendment Act, concessions, such as Reconnaissance th 2015 has been notified on 27 March, 2015 in Permits, Prospecting Licences and Mining supersession of the existing MMDR Act, 1957. The Leases shall be made transparent and Amendment removes discretion in the grant of seamless with security of tenure mineral concessions. Henceforth, all mineral guaranteed; Prospecting and mining shall concessions will be granted by the respective be recognised as independent activities State Governments only through auctions, which with transferability of concessions will bring greater transparency and remove playing a key role in mineral development discretion in allocation of mineral resources. processes. There would be no renewal of any mineral concession. The tenure of mineral concessions * With a purpose to attract large has been increased to 50 years as compared to investments and innovative technology, earlier provisions of 30 years. Thereafter, all a new concession, namely, Large Area mining leases would be put up for auction. Prospecting Licence (LAPL) would be Establishment of District Mineral Foundation in introduced. Simultaneously, duration of any district affected by mining related operations all concessions will be rationalised and and National Mineral Exploration Trust for the areas of operations enlarged suitably, purpose of regional and detailed exploration has within each State. also been incorporated in the Act. Further, in light * IBM will maintain a digitised database of the amendments in MMDR Act an emergent need to comprising a Resource Inventory and a provide an impetus to exploration in the country has Tenement Registry. The Tenement prompted a thorough review of exploration policy and 4-2 EXPLORATION & DEVELOPMENT strategy. A new exploration Policy namely National was updated. Updating of NMI as on 1.4.2015 has Mineral Exploration Policy (NMEP) therefore has been been completed for 71 minerals. formulated and adopted in 2016. GSI ORGANISATIONS INVOLVED GSI pursued its systematic geological GSI, AMDER, DGMs of various States, Public mapping in 2015-16 and had completed 5,924.98 Sector companies like NMDC, MECL, MOIL, etc. km2 large-scale mapping, 106.03 km2 detailed continued their efforts in respect of surveying, mapping and 1,13,202 m drilling as against 2 mapping and exploration of new deposits and re- preceding year's achievement of 5,450.84 km assessment of old deposits/mines during 2 large-scale mapping, 73.543 km detailed mapping 2015-16. and 87,465.87 m drilling. Out of the total mappable The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) areas of 3.14580 million km2 of the country, 3.09965 and Oil India Limited (OIL), the two National Oil million km2 has been covered so far by systematic Companies (NOC) and a few private and joint mapping bringing the total coverage to 98.53%. venture companies were engaged in exploration and production activities of oil and natural gas, Reserves Established including Coal-bed Methane in the country. Resources augmented by GSI during 2015-16 are furnished below: IBM IBM, as a facilitator to the Mineral Industry, i) A total of 62.97 million tonnes of (Fe: > (a) provides technical consultancy services for 55%) and 11.90 million tonnes of (Fe: -45% - conducting feasibility studies, environment 55%) of iron ore resources in Sundargarh distt., impact assessments, environment management Odisha . plans, etc; (b) carries out mining research project ii) A total of 14.66 million tonnes of 0.33% Cu on need-based aspects of mining; (c) conducts at cut-off of 0.2% Cu in Sikar districts, Rajasthan. mineral beneficiation studies, including mineralogical testing and chemical analysis and iii) A total of 99.46 thousand tonnes of gold (d) prepares mineral maps. ore with an average grade of 2.17 g/t (cut-off grade 1.0 g/t). For 0.5 g/t cut-off grade, a tentative resource During 2015-16, IBM prepared 100 multi- of 2,13,524 tonnes of ore with an average grade of 1.45 mineral leasehold maps for the states of in respect g/t. An inferred resource of 0.21 mt of gold ore (approx. of Andhra Pradesh (12), Tamil nadu (86) and 186.9 kg of Au metal) has been estimated with an average Kerala (2). grade of 0.90 g/t (UNFC-333) in Ajjanahalli Block-C, Tumkur district, Karnataka To encourage value addition and mineral consevation, IBM conducted 56 ore dressing iv) A total of 159.45 million tonnes of limestone investigations, chemical analysis in respect of (CaO: 38.38-47.29%) in Garhi-Upcha block, 129.5 35,376 radicals, and 2,423 mineralogical million tonnes(CaO: 34.65%-46.03%) in Badretha examinations. block and 20.57 million tonnes (CaO: 37.68%- 38.99%) in Hirawale block in Morena and Shivpuri Sustainable Development Framework was districts, Madhya Pradesh. rolled out at Sukinda Chromite mine of TISCO. Two Technical Consultancy assignments and one v) A total of 6.25 million tonnes of graphite Mining Research assignment were completed. (average FC - 8.79%) in Betul distt., Madhya Pradesh. Indian Bureau of Mines undertakes preparation of National Inventory of mineral Survey resources on a quinquennial basis. Under this Marine Survey programme, implementation of UNFC system was adopted in 2002 replacing the earlier resource GSI continued its offshore geoscientific classification based on Indian system. studies both in Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) Subsequently, NMI as on 1.4.2005 and 1.4.2010 and Territorial Waters (TW) along the East and 4-3 EXPLORATION & DEVELOPMENT West Coasts of India. Survey in the near-shore 2. ST-246: Systematic magnetic survey within zones (0 m - 10 m isobaths) were carried out using Territorial waters in the shelf area off Chilka Lake, hired small mechanical boats. Odisha. 3. ST-247: Study of seabed morphology off Marine and Coastal Survey Division (MCSD) has Ganga Delta in the mid to outer continental shelf off completed seabed mapping of 1,32,585 km2 out of West Bengal. 1,50,000 km2 in 5 km × 2 km grid within TW and 18,55,614 4. ST-249: Parametric Survey Within Territorial km2 out of 18,64,900 km2 in the EEZ beyond Territorial Waters Off Covelong, Tamil Nadu Coast. Waters on reconnaissance scale. Besides, an area of RV Samudra Shaudhikama 1,164 km2 within the contiguous zone was mapped on 1. SD-262: Characterisation of paleo channel reconnaissance scale with sampling grid of 5 km x 2 km. off Periyar River Estuary, KeralaCoast. Total EEZ coverage including TW is 19,88,199 sq. km 2. SD-263: Mapping of the seabed off Kadol, out of a total EEZ area of 20,14,900 sq. km. Gujarat. R.V. Samudra Ratnakar covered an area of 55,232 3. SD-265: Characterisation of paleo channels within territorial waters of Karnataka. sq km by high resolution seabed mapping by multi beam bathymetry and 15,867 sq km for mineral investigation. 4. SD-267: High resolution mapping of Under different themes, R.V. Samudra Ratnakar Contiguous Zone beyond territorial water in Arabian Sea off Kochi, Kerala (Block-A). collected 74,21l km single beam bathymetry, 6,880 magnetic, 17,996 gravity, 1,038 multichannel seismic, 5. SD-268: High resolution systematic mapping 1,60,70l km sub-bottom profile and 5 Conductivity- of Contiguous Zone beyond territorial water in Arabian Temperature-Depth (CTD) profile data and also Sea off Kochi, Kerala (Block-B). sediment samples from 82 locations and water samples Airborne Survey from 35 stations. During 2015-16, a total of nineteen cruises were undertaken using three vessels. i.e. 6 GSI pursued airborne geophysical survey for cruises of Ratnakar, 7 cruises of R.V.