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Coal

Coal is one of the important minerals which is

mainly used in the generation of thermal power

and smelting of iron ore. Coal occurs in rock

sequences mainly of two geological ages, namely

Gondwana and tertiary deposits. About 80 per

cent of the coal deposits in India is of bituminous

type and is of non-coking grade. The most

important Gondwana coal fields of India are

located in Damodar Valley. They lie in Jharkhand-

Bengal coal belt and the important coal fields in

this region are Raniganj, Jharia, Bokaro, Giridih, Coal in coal mine

Karanpura. Jharia is the largest coal field followed by Raniganj. The other river valleys associated

with coal are Godavari, Mahanadi and Sone. The most important coal mining centres are Singrauli

in Madhya Pradesh, Korba in Chhattisgarh, Talcher and Rampur in Odisha, Chanda–Wardha,

Kamptee and Bander in Maharashtra and Singareni and Pandur in Andhra Pradesh.

Petroleum

Crude petroleum is an essential source of energy

for all internal combustion engines in automobiles,

railways and aircraft. Its numerous by-products are

processed in petro-chemical industries such as-

fertilizer, synthetic rubber, synthetic fibre,

medicines, vaseline, lubricants, wax, soap and

cosmetics.

Oil and natural gas have been found in exploratory

wells in Krishna-Godavari and Kaveri basin on the Petrol Pump
east coast. Oil extracted from the wells is crude oil

and contains many impurities. It cannot be used directly. It needs to be refined. There are two types

of refineries in India: (a) field based and (b) market based. Digboi is an example of field based and

Barauni is an example of market based refinery. There are 18 refineries in India.

Quick What are the uses copper?
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