Coal news and updates

India’s October coal production up 4.7% m-o-m

December19: India’s coal production witnessed a rise for the second consecutive month as production in October rose 4.72% to 42.52 million tons (mt) from 40.6 mt in September, on slightly higher production by Coal India Limited (CIL), Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) as well as captive coal blocks, according to provisional data available with ICMW.

However, on a year-on-year basis, production in October 2013 fell by 3.93% from 44.26 mt in October 2012, the data revealed.

The aggregated production target for October this year was 51.05 mt, which means actual production was 83.29% of the target.

Total production during the first seven months (April-October) of 2013-14 stood at 286.75, mt, slightly higher than 284.55 mt in the corresponding period of the previous financial year.

In fact, CIL’s production during the first seven months of 2013-14 was at 235.51 mt, SCCL’s production stood at 24.65 mt whereas that from captive blocks stood at 26.59 mt during the period.

Although there has been a slight rise in production during October, the trend observed during the past six months indicates that India’s production target of 605 mt set for 2013-14 is likely to be missed by a significant margin unless something dramatic happens during the balance six months, which incidentally would be the peak production period due to favourable weather conditions.

As of end-October, total coal production of 286.75 mt is lower by 28.16 mt or 8.94% lower compared to the target of 315 mt for the period.

CIL’s production of 235.51 mt till October, although up from the corresponding period of the previous year, is much lower compared to the target of 247.45 mt.

Production from SCCL and captive blocks is not only down from the previous year, being at 24.65 mt and 26.59 mt respectively, but is significantly down from the target of 29.51 and 37.95 mt.

The country’s coal production target for 2013-14 has been set at 605 mt with 485.65 mt to be produced by CIL, 54.3 mt by SCCL whereas rest of the 65.05 mt is be produced by captive mines.

The following chart provides monthly coal production in FY’14, FY’13 and FY’12 (in million tons):

*Figures may not tally due to rounding of decimals.

* Figures include Meghalaya production