Coal stocks at two more power plants slipped into the ‘super critical’ category between last Friday and Monday, taking the total number of plants with less than four days worth of coal supplies up to a dozen, as per official data.
“The number of power plants (as on September 16, 2017) in critical and super critical category was four and 12, respectively,” according to a statement from the Ministry of Coal on Monday. This number stood at four and 10 as of September 13, according to data released last Friday.
‘No coal shortage’
“To the best of my knowledge, there is no shortage in coal,” Amrit Pandurangi, senior director (infrastructure) at Deloitte India told The Hindu. “It could be a financing issue. Power plants need to earn their money from the distribution companies, who are not in a position to pay on time. In turn, this delays payments by the power companies to Coal India and so Coal India might be concerned about this since it could end up in a situation where it is financing the power companies.”
“The only other reason could be a logistics problem due to the monsoon and trains not running on time or not at all,” Mr. Pandurangi added.
“A total of 213.5 railway rakes of coal were despatched to different consumers out of which 196 railway rakes were despatched to power sector alone,” the data for September 16, 2017 said. This is lower than the total despatch of 225.9 railway rakes of coal on September 13, of which 212.9 railway rakes were despatched to the power sector.
“According to the companies I have spoken to, the major problem seems to be that there are not enough railway rakes being deployed,” an expert commentator said on the condition of anonymity. “Why this is happening is not clear because the railways runs every year during the monsoon, and anyway, the flooding is not happening in the areas that would affect this supply.”
“On September 16, 2017, the total coal despatch of Coal India Limited was 1.49 million tonnes (MT),” the release added. “The total coal despatch on September 16, 2017 to the power sector was about 1.16MT.”