Coal news and updates

Coal India to invest Rs 57,000 crore by 2020

Coal India will invest Rs 57,000 crore by 2020 to more than double annual production to 1 billion tonnes, power and coal minister Piyush Goyal has said. The state-run coal behemoth produced 494 million tonnes of coal in 2014-15.

According to the road map readied by the ministry, Kolkata-headquartered Coal India will invest about Rs 6,000 crore in 2015-16 and Rs 8,282 crore in 2016-17. During 2017-18 and 2018-19, investments are slated to jump to Rs 14,539 crore and Rs 14,635  crore, respectively. In 2019-20, the last year of this planning module, Coal India will invest Rs 13,529 crore.

"Coal India's cash reserves at present is around Rs 50,000 crore and the company is expected to generate about Rs 10,000 crore to Rs 15,000 crore every year for the next five years," a senior Coal India official said. "Financing this large investment plan will thus not be an issue and we do not need any sort of debt financing to achieve targeted growth."

The robust cash reserve position of the company, is in fact a positive for the company because large global institutions have either stopped financing coal projects or are in the process of reducing their exposure in the sector.

source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com