Abstract: The clean coal product produced by ZCCC's coal preparation plant is considerably high in moisture. Following an analysis of the raw coal property,an investigation is made into the existing process design and the problems found in coal cleaning and dewatering operations for optimization of cleaning process and equipment. Though the optimization effort,the composite moisture of the final clean coal product is reduced from 17. 10% down to below 11%,bringing about a favourable social and economic benefit for the plant.