Coal news and updates

Utilities’ coal stocks dip w-o-w first time since Oct 23

As the mercury surged northward amidst the summer heat wave, coal stocks at about 100 thermal power plants (TPS) monitored by the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) decreased as of April 6, 2016, week-on-week (w-o-w), though they were still up month-on-month (m-o-m) and year-on-year (y-o-y).

It may be noted that, for the first time since the week ended October 23, 2015 coal stocks at the power plants have dipped on a week-on-week basis.

According to a CEA report, coal stocks at 100 TPS stood at 38.506 million tons (mt) as of April 12, 2016, down 1.52% w-o-w from 39.100 mt as of April 5, 2016, though up 2.47% m-o-m from 37.576 mt as of March 13, 2016.

The inventory as on April 12, 2016 was up 37.11% y-o-y from 28.083 mt as of April 12, 2015.

There has been a continuous improvement in the coal stocks positions at power plants since the beginning of January 2015 and the situation is such that since December 2015, not a single plant has been facing a super-critical coal stocks scenario of less than 7 days or critical coal stocks position of less than 4 days.

Of the total, domestic coal stocks at the TPS stood at 35.936 mt as of April 12, 2016, down 1.46% w-o-w from 36.468 mt as of April 5, 2016, up 2.54% m-o-m from 35.047 mt as of March 13, 2016 and up 44.51% y-o-y from 24.868 mt as of April 12, 2015.

However, imported coal stocks at the TPS stood at 2.569 mt as of April 12, 2016, down 2.39% w-o-w from 2.632 mt as of April 5, 2016, but up 2.54% m-o-m from 2.529 mt as of March 13, 2016 and down 20,07% y-o-y from 3.214 mt as of April 12, 2015.

A year back, as of April 12, 2015, the number of plants facing critical coal stocks position of less than seven days was 9 and the number of plants facing critical coal stocks position of less than four days was 6.

In terms of days, stocks of coal on April 12, 2016, April 5, 2016, March 13, 2016 and on April 12, 2015 were sufficient to run all the plants for 26, 26, 27 and 19 days respectively.

Following table shows coal stocks position at power plants on various days: