Coal news and updates

India’s steam coal imports may fall 25-30 mt in FY16

Steam coal imports by India are likely to see a decline of 25-30 million tons (mt) in 2015-16, compared to a year ago, according to an estimate by ICMW.

Steam coal imports during the first 10 months (April-January) of 2015-16 have dropped by around 14 percent to 132.7 mt (provisional), compared to around 155 mt recorded for the same period last year, data available from ports and customs reveal. In absolute terms, this shows a decline of 22 mt.

Going by the current slowdown in coal demand and the increased stockpile at pitheads and power plants, it is expected that imports of steam coal would continue to remain subdued in the last two months of the current year.

ICMW estimates that India's imports of steam coal in FY16 will be 155-160 mt compared with around 185 mt in FY15 because of low imports by power generation companies on increased availability of domestic coal.

Steam coal imports will continue to taper down in FY17 as well and are likely to fall to around 150 mt primarily because of fall in imports by non-coastal area-based state power generation companies even though imports by coastal power plants as well as other sectors are likely to increase a bit, ICMW understands.

However, the situation may change and there might be higher imports of coal if the PLF of thermal power plants, which was hovering around 61% till December 2015, goes up.

ICMW also estimates that Coal India Ltd (CIL) will end up with a production volume of 535-540 mt of coal in 2015-16 and around 580-585 mt in 2016-17 and the import figures might change a bit depending on actual production by CIL.

As far as steam coal imports in the first 10 months of 2015-16 are concerned, these fell steadily from 42.4 mt in the first quarter to 39.5 mt in the second quarter and 37.6 mt in the third quarter.

Incidentally, Coal Secretary Anil Swarup said on February 17 that a reduction in coal imports would result in savings of Rs 30,000 crore for the country in the current financial year.

Source: ICMW