Coal news and updates

India’s captive blocks’ Jan output up 23% y-o-y

March 2: As expected, coal production from the captive blocks in India rose 22.8% to 6.14 million tons (mt) in January 2015 compared to 5 mt produced in the corresponding month of 2014, according to provisional data available with ICMW.

In January, production from captive block surpassed its monthly target of 5.69 mt.

Contrary to general expectations, ICMW had earlier reported that production from captive coal blocks would not be affected in the aftermath of de-allocation of the blocks by the Supreme Court in view of the fact that end-use plants (EUPs) would not be allowed to shut down for want of coal.

The latest figures suggest that ICMW’s report was correct.

On a month-on-month basis, however, coal output from captive blocks fell slightly from 6.29 mt recorded in December 2014. In November, output form captive blocks stood at 5.63 mt.

During April-January, 2014-15, coal production from the captive blocks stood at 55.56 mt, up 29.84% from 42.79 mt recorded in the same period of the last fiscal. 

The target for the first 10 months was 56.87 mt, which means output from the captive blocks during the period fell short by 1.31 mt.

Production target for the captive blocks for the month of January was 5.69 mt, same as in each month from June to December.

The annual production target for the captive blocks in 2014-15 stands at 68.25 mt.