Coal news and updates

‘Coal would remain energy leader for at least 15 years’

Coal India Ltd (CIL) has been in the eye of the storm after fuel stocks at coal-fuelled power plants depleted in October. Fuel stocks since are being replenished.

In an email interview, Pramod Agrawal, chairman of world’s largest coal miner, spoke about scaling down of production by power plants which were reliant on costly imported coal, leading to domestic coal-fuelled power plants to step in. Agrawal, an IAS officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre, also spoke about a likely increase in prices of the fossil fuel and stated that coal would keep its leadership of the energy landscape for at least a decade-and-a-half despite the focus on clean energy.

Owing to high international coal prices, 14 imported coal-based power plants scaled down their generation to 28.24 billion units (BU) during April-October’21 compared to 44.96 BU in the same period a year earlier, which resulted in a generation fall of 37%. Domestic coal-based power plants had stepped in to meet the gap where CIL had supplied around 20 million tonnes of additional coal. Supply fluctuation during the monsoon is a normal seasonal trend which this year got amplified due to a sudden surge in power generation leading to unprecedented coal demand. In fact, our supplies to the power sector are at an all-time high so far. With improved supplies, 20 mt of coal stock has been built up at power plants so far, the bulk of it from CIL sources. We are targeting to boost the stocks further to adequate levels by the fiscal-end. Outstanding receivables are the only concern with state gencos.