Coal news and updates

Coal stocks at India’s power units cross 36-mt mark

Coal stocks at about 100 thermal power plants (TPS) monitored by the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) crossed the 36 million tons (mt) mark as of February 17, 2016, up week-on-week (w-o-w), month-on-month (m-o-m) and year-on-year (y-o-y).

There has been a continuous improvement in the coal stocks position 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.

According to the CEA report, coal stocks at 100 TPS stood at 36.018 mt as of February 17, 2016, up 1.63% w-o-w from 35.441 mt as of February 9, 2016, and up 7.80% m-o-m from 33.411 mt as of January 17, 2016. The inventory was also up 93.26% y-o-y from 18.637 mt as of February 17, 2015.

Similarly, domestic coal stocks at TPS stood at 33.552 mt as of February 17, 2016, up 1.66% w-o-w from 33.003 mt as of February 9, 2016, up 6.94% m-o-m from 31.374 mt as of January 17, 2016 and up 105.17% y-o-y from 16.353 mt as of February 17, 2015.

Likewise, imported coal stocks at the TPS stood at 2.466 mt as of February 17, 2016, up 1.11% w-o-w from 2.439 mt as of February 9, 2016, up 21.06% m-o-m from 2.037 mt as of January 17, 2016 and up 7.97% y-o-y from 2.284 mt as of February 17, 2015.

A year back, as of February 17, 2015, the number of plants facing critical coal stocks position of less than seven days was 23 and the number of plants facing critical coal stocks position of less than four days was 10.

In terms of days, stocks of coal on February 17, 2016, February 9, 2016, January 17, 2016 and on February 17, 2015 were sufficient to run all the plants for 24, 23, 24 and 12 days respectively.

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