Coal news and updates

CEA not to fix coal import target for utilities for FY17

Increased availability of domestic coal and lower-than-expected growth in demand for power in the country has prompted the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), a nodal authority under the Ministry of Power, not to set any coal import target for 2016-17 for power utilities in the country, an official from CEA told ICMW.

“Whoever (plants/utilities) wants to import whatever quantity, if required, they can do so. We have decided not to fix any target for them for the year 2016-17,” the official said.

The CEA had initially, in March 2015, set a target of 113 million tons (mt) of coal imports for power utilities for the year 2015-16, but the target was reduced to 84 mt sometime in June 2015 in view of higher availability of domestic coal.

Consequent to the reduction in the import target and also because of higher availability of domestic coal, the total volume of coal imported by the utilities during the first 11 months of 2015-16 (April-February) stood at 74.72 mt as against 83.85 mt imported during the corresponding period of 2014-15.

“The power plants have not been given any target, but they can import as per their financial schedule depending on the cost factor or economics. So we cannot set the coal import target this year,” the official said.

In addition, there is practically no shortage of domestic coal right now and, if required, the power plants can buy domestic coal through e-auction as well, by paying some extra premium, the official added.