Coal news and updates

The shortage of coal sourced from its own mines has aggravated Damodar Valley Corporation’s (DVC) troubles at a time the state-run power utility is unable to pay its dues to Coal India on account of under-recovery from the Jharkhand State Electricity Board.

 

The DVC procures over 80 per cent of its coal requirement from Coal India subsidiaries such as Eastern Coalfields Ltd, Central Coalfields Ltd and Bharat Coking Coal Ltd and the remaining is sourced from captive mines in Bengal and Jharkhand.

 

“We have been facing various issues at our own mines that have disrupted coal supply,” a senior DVC official said.

 

He said for the Barjora (North) block, where DVC has formed a joint venture with EMTA to source coal for the 2,340 megawatt (MW) Mejia Thermal Power Station, mining was affected because of local unrest, with a section of villagers demanding employment. Around 6,000 tonnes of coal are produced from the block and around 2-3 rakes of the fuel are supplied to the power plant daily.

 

The plant had to reduce its generation owing to the shortage of coal. The official said the situation was stabilising and supply was being normalised.

 

Another block in Bermo in Jharkhand is faced with overburden disposal issue. Overburden usually consists of the rock and soil that lie above the coal seam. “In Bermo, there is an overburden problem. A tender has been floated and the process could take at least six months,” the official said.

 

Another coal block — Khagra Joydev — located in Bengal with reserves of around 200 million tonnes is facing uncertainty over land acquisition.

 

The DVC has accumulated dues of over Rs 1,400 crore on coal and with the Jharkhand government yet to clear its arrears, it is resorting to load restriction for industrial consumers in the valley area. This has impacted the production of the industrial units.

 

Output from SAIL’s Durgapur Steel Plant and Alloy Steel Plant has taken a hit because of a 20-30 per cent power restriction from the DVC.

 

“We are selectively stopping certain units, including phase-wise load-shedding in the steel township to tide ourself over the situation till it improves,” a statement from Durgapur Steel Plant said.

 

DVC said the load restriction had been on account of the coal shortage, which had affected generation. DVC requires at least 10 rakes of coal daily to generate over 3,000 MW.

 

“We are currently faced with an acute shortage of coal because of our inability to pay for coal on account of pending dues from Jharkhand. In the last few weeks, we had received only 3-4 rakes and our generation had declined around 1,000MW. We had no option but to resort to restriction to some of our consumers excepting Indian Railways,” the DVC official said.

 

New chairman

 

Andrew WK Langstieh has been appointed as the chairman of DVC and will join from September 1.

 

 

Source: The Telegraph