Coal news and updates

Coal stocks at power plants cross 35-mt mark

Coal stocks at about 100 thermal power plants (TPS) monitored by the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) crossed the 35 million tons (mt) mark as of February 9, 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 35.441 mt as of February 9, 2016, up 2.37% w-o-w from 34.620 mt as of February 2, 2016, and up 10.54% m-o-m from 32.061 mt as of January 10, 2016. The inventory was also up 100.91% y-o-y from 17.640 mt as of February 9, 2015.

Similarly, domestic coal stocks at TPS stood at 33.003 mt as of February 9, 2016, up 1.07% w-o-w from 32.655 mt as of February 2, 2016, up 9.50% m-o-m from 30.141 mt as of January 10, 2016 and up 114.71% y-o-y from 15.371 mt as of February 9, 2015.

Likewise, imported coal stocks at the TPS stood at 2.439 mt as of February 9, 2016, up 24.19% w-o-w from 1.964 mt as on February 2, 2016, up 27.03% m-o-m from 1.920 mt as of January 10, 2016 and up 7.49% y-o-y from 2.269 mt as of February 9, 2015.

A year back, as of February 9, 2015, the number of plants facing critical coal stocks position of less than seven days was 25 and the number of plants facing critical coal stocks position of less than four days was 9.

In terms of days, stocks of coal on February 9, 2016, February 2, 2016, January 10, 2016 and on February 9, 2015 were sufficient to run all the plants for 23, 24, 24 and 11 days respectively.

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

 Source: ICMW