Although the record coal production by the state-run miner Coal India (CIL) has eased the fuel supply for most thermal power plants, many stations commissioned after 2009 allege that the CIL was still sticking to its earlier stance of providing only three-fourth of the annual contracted quantity.

Back in 2011, CIL had signed definitive fuel supply agreements (FSAs) with 78,000 MW of power plants but with a condition that said that public sector enterprise will only supply a fraction of total requirement till its production remained inadequate.

To compete against cheaper and high-grade South African, Indonesian and Australian coal, while keeping its prices unchanged, Coal India (CIL) recently strategised a move whereby it is giving up part of its charges levied previously on the consumers.

The coal monolith will no longer charge an extra premium from buyers for purchase of the full quantity of coal as had been done previously.

Coal India has dipped 3% to Rs 272, its lowest level since March 23, 2014 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), after the company decided to give up performance incentive for supply of higher grades of coal and to improve lifting of coal.

“The company’s board on 11th February 2016, accorded its approval for giving up performance incentive for supply of higher grades of coal (G5 and above) in the Model Fuel Supply Agreement for power and non-power with immediate effect and to improve lifting of coal,” Coal India said in a statement.

With the divestment news cropping up once again, Coal India touched its 52 week lows of Rs 274.65 on 6th April and now trades at Rs 280.50 levels. However, looking at the good fundamentals and strong dividend yield, any weakness in the price is always a good opportunity for investors to accumulate the stock.

The company is seeing strong ramp-up in volumes. While for the month of March, volumes may have been soft (production and dispatches growth of 3.4 and 3.5 per cent respectively) full year growth was strong. For FY16, the company’s production and dispatches at 536.5 million tonne (MT) and 532.3 MT have registered a growth of 8.6 per cent and 8.8 per, respectively cent over FY15.

New Delhi: Despite record coal production in 2015-16 and comfortable stock levels at thermal power plants, the government will further ramp up coal output as the expected turnaround of distressed power distribution companies will likely lead to higher coal demand for electricity generation, said coal secretary Anil Swarup said in an interview on Wednesday.

Accordingly, Coal India Ltd (CIL) will go ahead with its estimated capital investment of Rs.57,000 crore to boost production to one billion tonne by 2019-20, Swarup said.

Helped by a record coal production by the world’s largest coal miner Coal India Ltd (CIL), India reduced its import bill of the dry fuel by more than Rs 28,000 crore in the last fiscal.

“Record coal production by CIL leads to a reduction in import by 34.26 million tonnes (MT). Results in a saving of Rs 28,070 crore in foreign exchange during 2015-16,” Coal Secretary Anil Swarup said in a tweet.

Although Coal India (CIL) missed its production target for 2014-15 by nearly 2.5 per cent at 536.5 million tonnes (mt), the company registered an output growth of 8.6 per cent compared with 2013-14. Its offtake, under tapered demand for coal, also rose 8.8 per cent during the year ended March 31, 2015.

Coal minister Piyush Goyal tweeted the growth to be the highest ever in “almost three decades”.

We met senior management of Coal India (CIL) to know more about the steps the company is taking to tackle the impending wage hike and meet its sales target. CIL is confident of mitigating effects of the impending wage hike and increase in clean energy cess. It has maintained its production target of 598 million tonnes for FY17. CIL is targeting to reduce costs by 5% every year primarily through manpower cost rationalisation and enhancing operating and supply chain efficiencies.

The coal ministry is mulling reduction of Coal India’s production target for the next fiscal with the country likely to end FY16 with a stockpile of 90 million tonne — 55 MT at CIL’s pitheads and 35 MT inventory at power plants.

The ministry has set the target for CIL to produce 605 MT in FY 17. So with a pithead stock of 55 MT, the coal behemoth will have to make plans for selling 660 MT.

NEW DELHI: Coal India's measures to prevent theft by electronically "fencing" mining areas and fitting trucks with a GPS-based tracking system will be finished by the end of April, a government official said.

As much as a fifth of the state-run company's annual output is stolen, costing it up to $1 billion each year and feeding a huge black market in the fuel.

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