Coal news and updates

KPCL’s steam coal imports surge 129% in August m-o-m

Imports of steam coal by power utility Karnataka Power Corporation Limited (KPCL) in August 2016 increased 129.31% to 133,000 tons against 58,000 tons in July 2016, according to provisional data available with ICMW.

The target for the month under review was not available as CEA has not fixed the coal import target for any of the country’s utilities for 2016-17 in view of higher availability of domestic coal, as per information available with ICMW.

 Imports of the fuel for the first 5 months (April-August) of 2016-17 stood at 446,000 tons against 128,000 tons imports in the same period of the previous fiscal (2015-16), up manifold year-on-year.

 However, imports of steam coal by KPCL during the full fiscal of 2015-16 stood at only 543,000 tons, down 44.64% compared to 981,000 tons imported during 2014-15.

 The import target for the utility for 2015-16 was 1,248,000 tons, which means the materialisation for the period was 43.51%. The original import target for the year had been 2 mt, but was revised to 1 mt in July 2015, following increased availability of domestic coal.

 The following chart provides the monthly break-up of coal imports by KPCL in 2016-17, 2015-16 and 2015-16 (provisional and in ‘000 tons):

**April-March receipts may not tally due to revision in past months’ receipts.