Coal news and updates

Coal stocks at India’s power plants breach 38-mt mark

Coal stocks at about 100 thermal power plants (TPS) monitored by the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) crossed 38 million tons (mt) as of March 22, 2016, consequently, going up week-on-week (w-o-w), month-on-month (m-o-m) and year-on-year (y-o-y).

According to a CEA report, coal stocks at 100 TPS stood at 38.207 mt as of March 22, 2016, up 0.76% w-o-w from 37.918 mt as of March 15, 2016 and up 5.53% m-o-m from 36.204 mt as of February 22, 2016.

The inventory as on March 22, 2016 was up 53.56% y-o-y from 24.881 mt as of March 23, 2015.

There has been a continuous improvement in the coal stocks positions at power plants since the beginning of January 2015 and the situation is such that since December 2015, not a single plant has been facing a super-critical coal stocks scenario of less than 7 days or critical coal stocks position of less than 4 days.

Of the total, domestic coal stocks at the TPS stood at 35.783 mt as of March 22, 2016, up 1.08% w-o-w from 35.400 mt as of March 15, 2016, up 6.28% m-o-m from 33.670 mt as of February 22, 2016 and up 61.05% y-o-y from 22.219 mt as of March 23, 2015.

However, imported coal stocks at the TPS stood at 2.425 mt as of March 22, 2016, down 3.69% w-o-w from 2.518 mt as of March 15, 2016, down 4.30% m-o-m from 2.534 mt as of February 22, 2016 and down 8.90% y-o-y from 2.662 mt as of March 23, 2015.

A year back, as of March 23, 2015, the number of plants facing critical coal stocks position of less than seven days was 14 and the number of plants facing critical coal stocks position of less than four days was 2.

In terms of days, stocks of coal on March 22, 2016, March 15, 2016, February 22, 2016 and on March 23, 2015 were sufficient to run all the plants for 27, 27, 24 and 17 days respectively.

Following table shows coal stocks position at power plants on various days: