Coal news and updates

Consider tariff-pooling instead of price pooling: Lahiry

September 15: In the face of bulging coal imports by the Indian power sector, the government may consider “tariff pooling” instead of “coal price pooling”, T K Lahiry, CMD, Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL), said on September 15.

“Instead of coal price pooling, we should consider tariff pooling for the power sector. This will also help in linkage rationalisation and save on coal transportation costs,” said Lahiry while speaking at the 8th Indian Coal Markets Conference in Kolkata, organised by mjunction services limited, IHS McCloskey and the Coal Consumers’ Association of India (CCAI).

Pointing out that the Ministry of Coal (MoC) is seriously considering linkage rationalisation, Lahiry said that instead of carrying coal from far-away domestic mines, coast-based power plants should be asked to run their operations entirely on the basis of imported coal.

“If that can be done, there will be a strong case for tariff pooling for the power sector as a whole,” he said.

The CMD also stressed on increasing underground (UG) production in the country as there will be less hurdles in the form of environmental and forestry clearances. “Between 250 and 600 metres, huge reserve of coal is available. Today, UG mines lack in productivity but if we can bring in state-of-the-art technology, operating costs will come down significantly,” he said.

In this regard, he said that BCCL has already started developing high-powered UG mines and should see an increase in UG production over the next couple of years.