Coal news and updates

Coal stocks at power plants cross 28.50-mt levels

April 17: Coal stocks at power plants monitored by the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) rose to more than 28.5 million tons (mt) as on April 15, 2015 largely on account of higher domestic production and comparatively low demand for electricity in the country.

According to data released by the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), the coal stocks at the 100 TPS stood at 28.537 mt on April 15, 2015, up from 28.366 mt on April 14, 2015.

Such a huge stock of coal at power plants was never seen in the past, an official of CIL said.

Stocks of coal at power plants had been rising consistently from the middle of October 2014, when it had reached a low of around 7 mt, due to continued improvement in domestic coal production and comparatively lower demand for electricity in the country.

“The situation is such that even power generators like NTPC are finding it difficult to find space for maintaining the stock of coal and they are asking for lower supplies from CIL due to space constraint,” a source at CIL said.

The stocks at the 100 TPS stood at 27.508 mt on April 8, 2015 and at 23.580 mt on March 15, 2015.

Stocks of imported and domestic coals stood at 3.275 mt and 25.262 mt respectively on April 15, 2015 while imported and domestic coal stocks stood at 3.193 mt and 25.173 mt on April 14, 2015.

In terms of days, stocks of coal on April 15 and 14, 2015 were sufficient to run all the plants for 19 days while on April 8 and March 15, 2015 the stocks were sufficient to run the plants for 18 and 16 days respectively.

The number of plants facing critical coal stocks position of less than seven days stood at 10 and 12 respectively on April 15 and 14, 2015, while the figure was at 11 and 10 respectively on April 8 and March 15, 2015.

The number of plants facing critical coal stocks position of less than four days stood at 4 on April 15 as well as on 14, 2015, while the figure was at 5 and 1 respectively on April 8 and March 15, 2015.

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