Coal news and updates

Domestic pet coke loading declines in October

November 11: Loading of petroleum coke (fuel grade) rakes by major Indian refineries in October fell 5.50% compared to September on low demand from cement makers, according to information available with ICMW.

It was the third consecutive month when total loading of pet coke rakes declined after touching a peak of 123 in July. The steepest decline was registered by Essar Oil which loaded only 19 rakes in October compared to 29 in July, according to data available with ICMW.

A total of 103 rakes were loaded by five refineries in India in October compared to 109 loaded in September.

Following is the detailed monthly loading of pet coke from various Indian refineries between April and October, 2013 (in number of rakes):

One rake usually carries around 3,600 tons of pet coke but, in recent months, it was found that up to 3,700 tons of the material was being loaded on to a single rake.

Of the 72 rakes loaded by RIL in October, 59 were loaded from its SEZ refinery and 13 from DTA.

From the SEZ, 29 rakes went to Shree Cement, 10 to J K Lakshmi Cement, 2 to Tata Chemicals, 3 each to Saurashtra Cement and Aditya Cement, 4 rakes each to Vikram Cement and UltraTech (Wadi- Karnataka),  and one rake each to Ambuja Cement and ACC.

One rake was despatched from the SEZ to Asansol in West Bengal and another to a plant at Jalpaiguri. However, names of both these plants are currently not available.

Of the 13 rakes loaded from RIL’s DTA siding in October, 5 went to Binani Cement, 4 to Prism Cement and 1 rake each to UltraTech (Bhatapara), Birla Cement (Satna), Birla Cement (Chanderia) and J K Cement (Nimhara).

Of the total 19 rakes despatches by Essar in October, 10 went to Shree Cement, 3 to Mangalam Cement, 2 rakes each to ACC and Jaiprakash and 1 rake each to Ambuja Cement and Bhusan Steel.

It is not clear for what purpose Bhusan Steel had purchased pet coke.

Of the total 8 rakes loaded from BORL-Bina in October, 3 went to Heidelberg Cement, 2 to Maihar Cement and 1 each to JP (Rewa), Century Cement and Prism Cement.

Of the total loading of 4 rakes from HPCL-Bhatinda, 3 went to Ambuja Cement (Himachal) and 1 rake to ACC (Gagal).