Coal news and updates

CIL’s coal despatches to power sector up, materialisation down

July 17: Despite despatching high grade coal to the power sector in 2013-14, the overall materialisation of supplies by Coal India Ltd (CIL) to the sector in relation to the committed quantity fell by nearly 6%, Coal Minister Piyush Goyal said.

“Provisional despatches of coal to power utilities by CIL were 86% of the FSA/MoU commitment in 2013-14 as compared to 92% in 2012-13 and 91% in 2011-12,” Goyal said.

Coal is supplied to the power utilities under the fuel supply agreements (FSA) and also through short-term memoranda of understanding (MoU).

The minister said CIL had supplied 353.82 million tons (mt) (provisional) of coal to power utilities in 2013-14 against the committed quantity under the FSA/MoU of 412.30 or 86% of the committed quantity.

The actually supply in 2013-14 was up 8.31 mt from the 2012-13 level of 345.51 mt.

The committed quantity in 2012-13 was 374.47 mt which means the materialisation in 2012-13 was 92% of the commitment, the minister said.

He said CIL’s coal supply commitment to power utilities in 2011-12 was 344.38 mt, but its actual supply was 312.07 mt, which meant materialisation in 2011-12 was 91% of the commitment.

Thus, despite supplying 13.38% or 41.75 mt of additional coal to power utilities, materialisation of coal supplies as compared to the commitment made by CIL had declined, an industry source said.

Goyal further said all-out efforts are being made by coal companies for continued supply of coal to all thermal power plants in the country and to improve the materialisation level.

“A new Inter-Ministerial Task Force has also been constituted to undertake a comprehensive review of the existing coal sources and to consider feasibility for rationalisation of the sources with a view to optimising transportation costs,” he said.