Coal news and updates

CIL’s despatches to power sector at 88% of AAP till July

August 6: Despatches of coal by Coal India Ltd (CIL) subsidiaries to the power sector during the first four months of 2014-15 (April-July) stood at 88% of the annual action plan (AAP), a senior official of the company told ICMW.

“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 a few others,” the official said.

“There is a growth of 2.5% in the overall off-take during the period as compared to the corresponding period of 2013-14,” the official added.

CIL is supposed to supply around 430 million tons of coal to the power sector during the current financial year (2014-15), the official said.

Asked about reports that the company is supplying much more coal than required to some plants and much less than required to some others, the official said, “This is correct, but now we are offering inter-plant balancing facility wherein if the same owner has more than one plant, the coal meant for one plant can be supplied to the other unit.”

The official said that overall supplies to not only the power sector but other sectors might have been slightly higher had there been normal loading at some of the subsidiaries of the company.

“By and large, we are getting enough rakes from Indian Railways for loading, but there are certain pockets in which we need to work a bit more to improve loading,” the official said.

According to the official, the company is facing major loading problem at Mahanadi Coalfield Ltd’s IB Valley and Talcher areas and intermittent problems at South Eastern Coalfields Ltd (SECL), Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL) and Central Coalfields Ltd (CCL).

“There are shortages of rakes at IB Valley where we can load more but in the Talcher area we are unable to load because of local law and order-related issues,” the official said.

The company is occasionally facing problems of rake supplies from East Coast Railway which is responsible for providing rakes to the MCL areas.

“In the SECL areas, there is problem with ex-servicemen (ESM), but that is going to be streamlined soon,” the official added.