Coal news and updates

Third-party coal sampling not reality yet: Power producers

Six months after being assured third party sampling and analysis of coal supplied by Coal India Ltd, the Association of Power Producers (APP) is crying foul that the scheme is yet to be operationalised by the public sector miner.

APP has written to Piyush Goyal, Minister for State (Independent Charge) for Power, Coal and New and Renewable Energy, seeking his intervention in the matter.

It claims that Coal India has circulated standard operating procedures (SOP) for coal sampling at the loading end with “major deviations” from what was agreed in June 2014 at a meeting with the Minister.

“To ensure transparent sampling and analysis without any influence from CIL and its subsidiaries, it was decided that payment of the appointed agencies (for third party sampling) will be done by the power utilities. However, the SOP communicated by CIL does not specify the same,” said APP in its letter

It added that CIL also has recommended in the SOP that sampling should be done in laboratories of various coal companies even though it was decided that sampling should be done at independent laboratories. Finally, CIL has also not specified that third party sampling will be used for billing.

Meanwhile, industry trackers said a slippage of 20-30 per cent in the quality of coal supplied by Coal India is a norm.

“While CIL has written letters to NTPC and other power plants to appoint an independent agency for sampling and analysis of coal at its mines, the company has categorically refused to accept the results for the purpose of any commercial settlement under the contract effectively rendering the appointment of third party agencies meaningless,” an industry official added.

Source: The Hindu BusiessLine