Coal news and updates

Captive mines strategy to give RelPower competitive edge

September 1: While fuel availability will be the biggest challenge faced by power generation companies in the country, the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG)-promoted Reliance Power said in its annual report for 2013-14 that the company’s strategy of owning large captive coal resources and its track record in “efficient operations of mines” is expected to provide the company with “significant competitive advantage” compared to its “peers”.

“These resources will not only provide self-sufficiency for a large proportion of our assets, but also allow us to provide cost-competitive and reliable power to large parts of our country,” company Chairman Anil Dhirubai Ambani said in the annual report.

The annual report indicated that the Moher and Moher Amlohri captive coal blocks of the Sasan ultra mega power project (UMPP), with a peak production capacity of 20 million tons per annum, has been producing coal to meet the requirements of the power plant and the most significant accomplishment for the company this year was the successful commissioning of the additional three units of 660 MW each of the 3,960 MW UMPP in a span of four months.

Thus, four units of 660MW each have commenced power generation, taking the operational capacity of the plant to 2,640 MW. The balance two units are in advanced stages of construction and will be commissioned in the coming year.

The Sasan UMPP is the largest integrated power plant and coal mining project in the world and the company had won the project through tariff-based competitive bidding and had commissioned the project ahead of the bid schedule.

Apart from Sasan, the company is also executing two other UMPPs – the 3,960-MW pithead coal-based Tilaya UMPP in Jharkhand and the 3,960-MW imported coal-based Krishnapatnam UMPP in Andhra Pradesh.

The Tilaya UMPP will be selling power to 18 procurers from 10 states in northern, western and eastern India.

Krishnapatnam will be selling power to 11 procurers comprising four states. However, the project is facing issues consequent upon changes in regulations in Indonesia from where coal was intended to be imported for the project.