Coal news and updates

No proposal from CIL to re-consider cut in e-auction quantity: Goyal

September 8: The coal ministry (MoC) has not received any proposal from Coal India Ltd (CIL) for reconsidering the government decision on slashing e-auction volume to increase supply to the power plants, coal and power minister Piyush Goyal told ICMW.

“The ministry has not received any such request from CIL so far,” the minister said immediately after addressing reporters of more than 20 cities in the country via web telecast from Delhi.

The CIL Board, at its meeting on August 12, had decided to urge the ministry to reconsider its decision on reducing e-auction sale to 25 million tons (mt) this year (2014-15) from around 58 mt last year.

The board felt that reduction in the e-auction quantity will severely inconvenience small consumers who do not have linkages and rely on e-auction to meet their demand, a CIL director had said.

Besides, the reduction in e-auction quantity will negatively impact the company’s bottomline as its average realisation is about 30-40% higher by selling coal through this system, he added.

CIL had allotted about 58 mt of coal through the spot e-auction route in 2013-14 and had directly added about Rs 3,500 crore to its total profit.

Meanwhile, according to a compilation by ICMW, the prices in e-auction have shot up sharply in July and August following drastic cut in offered quantity.