Coal India sales to power sector rise 6%

Coal India supplied 103.1 million tonnes of coal to the non-power sector in the April-January period of the current fiscal. Photo: Reuters

Kolkata: Coal India Ltd supplied 371.8 million tonnes of coal to the power sector in the last 10 months ending January, up 6.8% from the corresponding period last year, a senior company official said.

The state-owned miner also supplied 103.1 million tonnes of coal to the non-power sector in the April-January period of the current fiscal, registering a growth of 8.8% over the corresponding period last year.

This comes at a time when it has missed its own production target by 29.2 million tonnes. The Coal India has produced 440 million tonnes of coal in the April-January period of the ongoing fiscal.

The Coal India official, however, said the miner has a huge potential to increase its coal production in the peak period of the ongoing quarter and hopes to surpass the previous month’s productions. The current level of pithead coal stock is more than 34 million tonnes.

The official said various steps have been taken to increase the offtake and after sustained effort, an all time high rake loading could be achieved which was 300 rakes a day consistently in the last fortnight of January. The average rake loading to the thermal power plant has also increased from a level of 209.8 rake per day in October 2017 to 226 rake per day in February 2018.

To boost supply to thermal power stations, a strategic decision was taken to ensure coal supply from pit head to power stations located within 50 km by road. The available rake from the circuit was utilised to supply coal to distant thermal power stations.

Coal India had to curtail production in two subsidiaries—Central Coalfields and Bharat Coaking Coal—in early FY17 due to huge lying stock.

At 12.05, Coal India shares traded 0.72% up at Rs300 on BSE.