Coal news and updates

CIL’s coal supply to power sector in August at 98% of AAP

September 11: Coal India Limited (CIL) had supplied a total of 28.70 million tons (mt) of coal to various power generation companies in August 2014, which was 98% of the annual action plan (AAP) for the month, a senior official of the company told ICMW.

The company’s total coal supplies to the power sector during the first five months (April-August) of 2014-15 stood at about 146 mt, up 4% compared to around 140.40 mt supplied during the corresponding period of 2013-14, the official added.

CIL has a target to supply 405 mt coal to the power sector in 2014-15 as against the actual supply of around 353 mt in 2013-14.

“The target of supplying 405 mt coal to the power sector looks difficult as of now, but hopefully, the situation will improve in the coming months,” the official said.

“Our production and despatches were affected during the monsoon and even now the situation is not that good. We hope the impact of the monsoon will fade after September and our performance in terms of production and despatches will improve significantly,” the official added.

“Production was affected during the past few days at Western Coalfields Ltd due to heavy rainfall of about 100 mm in the Wardah coalfield area recently. In addition, despatches were affected in Central Coalfields Ltd from September 7 onwards after terrorists blew up a railway track,” the official added.

Despatches of coal by CIL subsidiaries to the power sector during the first four months of 2014-15 (April-July) stood at 88% of the AAP, the same official had told ICMW in August.

“Our overall materialisation of coal supplies to the power sector is 88% till July this year. This is for both new and old plants. There is excess supply to some plants and deficient supplies to some other plants,” the official said.

There was an overall growth of 2.5% in the overall off-take during the period (April-July) as compared to the corresponding period of 2013-14.