§ Mr. Richard Shepherdasked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will now seek to obtain figures to show the separate production costs for coal produced from deep mines and coal produced by contractors under licence from the opencast executive; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. John MooreIn schedule 8 to its accounts for 1978–79 the National Coal Board has added information to show, for that year and for 1977–78, the separate operating results, before interest, of the mining areas and the opencast regions. A copy of the accounts is in the Library of the House.
For 1978–79, the average cost per tonne for mining areas was £24.87 and the average cost per tonne for opencast regions was £18.12.