Coal news and updates

India’s Aug pithead vendible coal stocks drop 17.13% y-o-y

September 29: India’s pithead vendible coal stocks dropped 17.13% to 33.48 million tons (mt) as on the last day of August, 2014 against 40.40 mt recorded on the last day of August 2013, according to provisional data available with ICMW.

On a month-on-month basis, India’s pithead vendible coal stocks fell by 8.97% from 36.78 mt recorded as on the last day of July 2014.

India’s pithead vendible coal stocks on the last day of April 2014 stood at 52.73 mt.

The same was at 56.04 mt as on the last day of March 2014, down from 63.05 mt as on March 31, 2013.

The steady decline in coal stocks could be attributed to a significant fall in pithead vendible stocks of Coal India Ltd (CIL) subsidiaries like Eastern Coalfields Ltd (ECL), where stocks fell to 1.03 mt as on August 31, 2014 from 1.84 mt as on August 31, 2013.

During the period under review, pithead vendible stocks at Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL) fell to 3.06 mt from 3.88 mt in the same month a year ago while that of Central Coalfields Ltd (CCL) fell to 5.72 mt from 6.94 mt a year ago.

There was a decline in pithead vendible coal stocks at captive coal mines to 1.73 mt on August 31 2014 from 2.42 mt on the same day a year ago. However, stocks at Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) rose to 2.06 mt on August 31, 2014 from 1.40 mt as on August 31, 2013.

The following table gives detailed break-up of pithead vendible coal stocks with coal companies as of August 31, 2014, July 31, 2014,  April 30, 2014, March 31, 2014 and August 31, 2013 (in million tons):