New Delhi/Mumbai: Coal India Ltd’s sales and output in March rose to the highest on record as the world’s biggest coal miner rushed to meet its annual production target, a goal that it missed for at least the sixth consecutive year.

Boosting output is crucial for Coal India to meet rising demand from power plants, its biggest customers.

Preparing for a liberalised coal mining regime when private companies will be allowed to commercially mine and sell coal, state-run Coal India is looking at keeping its prices lower than the former by effectively decreasing production costs and attaining higher economies of scale.

According to Gopal Singh, chairman and managing director, Coal India has already been able to decrease production costs by Rs 53 a tonne by increasing the shifts in mines that has reduced a higher proportion of costs as a result of increased production.

New Delhi: Given the changing global energy mix, Coal India Ltd, the world’s largest coal miner, plans to set up 20,000 megawatts (MW) of solar projects over the next 10 years, a top executive said.

It is estimated that at a per-MW cost of around Rs4.5 crore, Coal India will require an investment of around Rs 90,000 crore to set up this capacity.

In the coming years, though government-owned Coal India is poised to maintain leadership in a liberalised regime for the commodity, the world’s largest coal miner is also threatened with losing its competitive edge, primarily for technical reasons.

An internal assessment by the company in formulating a vision for the year 2030 reveals the strip ratio across its major mines is increasing substantially, which would lead to increased production cost.

KOLKATA: Dues of power plants to Coal India increased to Rs 12,300 crore at the end of February from Rs 9,000 crore in May last year, prompting officials of the state-run monopoly miner to request the power ministry to intervene and help recover the amount.

At a recent meeting with power ministry officials, Coal India executives said that the miner’s priority was to more than double coal inventory levels at power plants to 30 million tonnes from the present level of 14 million tonnes but they requested that the ministry should impress upon power plants to clear the dues at the earliest.

Indian Oil, ONGC and Coal India have emerged as the most profitable PSUs for 2016-17, whereas BSNL, Air India and MTNL incurred the highest losses, according to a government survey tabled in Parliament today.

The Public Enterprises Survey 2016-17, which mapped the performance of central public sector units, showed that the top ten loss-making state-owned firms accounted for a whopping 83.82 per cent of the total losses made by 82 loss-making CPSEs during the year.

The import of thermal coal is likely to increase in the coming months, as Coal India is set to miss its production target again – for an 11th straight month – causing a fuel shortage at the country’s thermal power plants. This is particularly worrisome as the demand for coal is likely to increase further as summer approaches.

The coal monolith’s output from April 2017 to February 2018 stood at 495.09 mt, seven per cent lower than the 531.32 mt target set by the coal ministry. Similarly, sales volume during this period is set to fall three per cent short of the 541.60 mt target.

NEW DELHI: Deregulation of commercial coal mining will be an opportunity rather than a challenge for Coal India, the company management told trade unions on Sunday as it began work on a blueprint to consolidate its leadership position ahead of impending competition from private players.

The company management met representatives of trade unions BMS, AITUC, CITU and HMS — representing CIL’s three lakh-strong workforce — to clear misgivings over the impact of the government’s decision to allow private companies into commercial mining.

Calcutta: Coal India would have to step up its production to over 3 million tonnes (mt) per day in March to reach its annual production target of 600 mt for the fiscal, a steep hike from the target of 2 mt a day that coal and railways minister Piyush Goyal had stated in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha in January.

the eleven months of 2017-18 (April-February), the state owned miner has produced 495.09 mt recording a modest 1.4 per cent growth over the corresponding period previous year, but falling short of the target by 7 per cent.

Central trade unions in coal sector opposed opening up of commercial coal mining for private sector after the Union Cabinet on Tuesday approved the methodology for auction of coal mines for sale of coal.

"We oppose the move as the decision was taken arbitrarily without discussing with us. We will soon come out with a decision," said the RSS-backed Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh affiliated Akhil Bhartiya Khadan Sangh President Brajendra Kumar Ray said.

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