Coal news and updates

NTPC aims to regulate coal imports in current fisc

April 16: NTPC Ltd, which had seen a 60% increase in imports of coal in 2014-15, plans to regulate its imports in the current year and also reduce blending if domestic supply from Coal India Ltd (CIL) improves, K K Sharma, Director (Operations), NTPC said.

“We are going to regulate coal imports this year based on assurance from CIL on increased production,” he said.

Total coal import by NTPC stood at 16 million tons (mt) in FY15 against only around 10 mt a year ago, Sharma said.

Asked about the expected coal consumption for 2015-16, the Director (Operations) said, “It will depend on the domestic supply scenario and last year’s orders which were carried forward to this year.”

He said the company is currently working on making adjustments to the boiler sizes and operations for blending imported coal, but this will be stopped as and when domestic supply of washed coal meets requirements.

“The additional cost of the imported material increases the generation cost by 30 paise per unit,” he said.

About power generation capacity, Sharma said, the central power utility currently has total capacity of 44,598 MW, while another 23,000 MW is under construction.