Coal news and updates

MoEFCC diktat may encourage use of higher grades: CIL

The Ministry of Environment & Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) stipulation of using coal with less than 34% ash at plants located beyond 500 km from the pithead is likely to encourage use of higher grades, a top official from Coal India Ltd (CIL) said.

“Many consumers have found economic sense in using higher grades in blends to comply with MoEFCC stipulations rather than to go for beneficiated coal from CIL/private sources,” the company’s Director (Marketing), S N Prasad, told ICMW.

He further said that the new stipulation may lead to a shortfall in supply of specific grades of coals to the power plants.

“As per our assessment, we will face an immediate shortfall of about 100 mt against the requirement of about 278 mt of less than 34% ash coal for catering to the requirement of plants located beyond 500 km from the mines,” he said.

Noting that the major shortfall will be at Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL), he said that the southern consumption centres can use in-vessel blended coal comprising of higher grades loaded from Eastern Coalfields (ECL)/ Central Coalfields (CCL) at Haldia and lower grades of MCL from Paradip/Dhamra ports for complying with the MoEFCC directive.