Coal news and updates

India’s imported coal stocks up 6% on first day of April

April 7: India’s imported coal stocks, including steam coal, coking coal and coke at seven major ports and one private port provisionally increased 5.93% to 5 million tons (mt) as on the first day of April compared to 4.72 mt recorded on the first day of March, according to data received by ICMW.

The overall imported coal stocks for the month of April increased at New Mangalore Port Trust (NMPT), V O Chidambaranar Port (formerly Tuticorin Port), Paradip Port and Mundra Port.

At NMPT, imported coal stocks increased 36.36% to 0.75 mt as on April 1, 2014, compared to 0.55 mt on March 1, 2014.

In February, coal stocks at the port stood at 0.85 mt.

At V O Chidambaranar Port, imported coal stocks rose 3.61% to 0.86 mt as on the first day of April compared to 0.83 mt on the first day of March. On the first day of February, imported coal stocks at the port stood at 0.90 mt.

At Mundra Port, the inventory of imported coal was up almost 76% to 0.65 mt as on March 1 compared to 0.37 mt on the same day a month ago.

At Paradip Port, imported coal stocks rose almost 8% to 1.168 mt on March 26, 2014 compared to 1.084 mt as on March 1, 2014.

During the current month, imported coal stocks remained almost flat at Mumbai Port at almost 0.22 mt. while a major depletion of coal stocks was recorded at Kolkata Port where stocks dropped almost 21% on April 1 to 0.31 mt compared to 0.39 mt on March 1, 2014.

At Kandla Port too imported coal stocks dropped by almost 0.10 mt or almost 10% to 0.92 mt on the first day of April compared to 1.023 mt on the same day a month ago.

Mormugao Port’s imported coal stocks dropped marginally to 0.13 mt as on the first day of the month compared to 0.15 mt on March 1, 1014.

The following table gives break-up of port-wise imported coal stocks as on April 1, 2014 compared to March 1, 2014 and February 1, 2014 (in million tons):

*Stock at Paradip as on March 26 and January 29, instead of April 1. 2014