Coal news and updates

The Cabinet is likely to take up coal pricing pooling this evening. Power plants are staring at a bleak future after the Supreme Court cancelled over 200 coal block allocations. Also, sources say the government will re-introduce a bill to set up a coal regulator in the Winter Session of Parliament. India's power sector has acutely failed to scale up production due to several issues: lack of increase in coal, which powers two-thirds of the country's power plants; inadequate production of natural gas, which powers a large chunk as well; and lack of investment due to irrational tariff structuring (governments holding back power companies to increase prices, commensurate with costs). The big step to boost to power sector, according to analysts, would be coal denationalization. Currently, only state-run companies can mine coal in India for commercial purposes, an effort led by Coal India  , which has of late increasingly failed to meet its production targets. This has led to India becoming the world's third-largest coal importer despite sitting on its fifth largest reserves. Since 1993, several private companies were allowed to mine coal but only for their end use such as power and steel production, but the decision was recently adjudged illegal by the Supreme Court -- for the ad-hoc manner in which they were handed out -- which de-allocated most of such blocks awarded since then. Allowing commercial mining of coal would spur investment in the sector, bring in international miners with advanced technologies and spur production, according to experts. The government is also expected to decide how it would auction the blocks that were cancelled by the Supreme Court. Coal India stock price On October 30, 2014, at 11:53 hrs Coal India was quoting at Rs 359.90, up Rs 1.95, or 0.54 percent. The 52-week high of the share was Rs 423.85 and the 52-week low was Rs 240.50. The company's trailing 12-month (TTM) EPS was at Rs 20.04 per share as per the quarter ended June 2014. The stock's price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio was 17.96. The latest book value of the company is Rs 26.04 per share. At current value, the price-to-book value of the company is 13.82.

 

 

Source: http://www.moneycontrol.com/