Just months after a Rs 22,600-crore disinvestment in the company, Coal India Ltd (CIL) is back in the reckoning for another stake sale, with the government considering selling five per cent in the public sector giant this financial year, it is learnt. The move will reduce the Centre’s stake in the company to 75 per cent, as mandated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India.

At current market prices, selling five per cent stake could fetch the government Rs 12,000-13,000 crore. This could go a long way in helping the Centre meet its disinvestment target of Rs 41,000 for FY16.

PSU behemoth Coal India, which is facing constraints in evacuation infrastructure, is planning to realign its logistics management of railway rakes to increase evacuation by additional 5-8 per cent.

"We are trying to push for higher evacuation capability. We are trying leverage the existing rail rakes available and utilise them to the optimum to move more coal," Coal India chairman Sutirtha Bhattacharya told PTI.

The government has finalised a list of 23 coal blocks to be auctioned in the third tranche beginning next week. These ready-to-operate mines are to be offered through forward and reverse bidding mechanism, which, the Centre is expecting, would fetch proceeds of over Rs 2 lakh crore.

The coal ministry had originally planned to auction nearly 16 blocks, but last week it is learnt to have added eight more mines to the auction list. Of the 23 mines, 15 have been earmarked for the power sector while eight are for unregulated sectors like steel,cement and captive power.

Another tranche of share sale in state-run miner Coal India Ltd, the largest coal producer in the world, is "not ruled out", a finance ministry official told CNBC-TV18 television channel on Monday.

Aradhana Johri, divestment secretary at the ministry, did not specify any time-frame for the share sale in the company, which is nearly 80% owned by the government.

MUMBAI: Extending the winning run to fourth consecutive session on Thursday, the benchmark BSE Sensex rose by over 190 points to close at a three-week high of 28,707.75 mainly led by gains in RIL, Infosys and Coal India amid sustained foreign capital inflows.

The barometer has garnered 750.26 points in four-day gaining spree.

KOLKATA: Coal India Ltd is betting big on coal auctions, while it looks to sell about 55 million tonnes (mt) of the dry fuel through this route in the current fiscal year.

For the state-run miner, auctions fetch the highest price among all sales channels and account for a sizeable chunk of profit. With coal stocks at power plants reaching 26 mt, the highest in several years, CIL can now offer coal to anyone through e-auction until last month, the company was to first offer coal to electricity utilities. The coal ministry has now allowed it to offer it to everyone, including power producers.

With the production of thermal coal on the rise, the government is hopeful that state-owned Coal India will surpass its one billion tonne excavation target by 2020.

Power and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal today said: "We are expecting the companies to supersede coal production targets, I am hopeful that Coal India would exceed targets set for it by 2020."

NEW DELHI: The government on Tuesday allotted 38 coal mines, from the allotments earlier cancelled by the Supreme Court, to central and state public sector units (PSUs).

"The government has allotted 38 coal mines to central and state PSUs," Coal Secretary Anil Swarup announced here.

Union Minister Piyush Goyal on Sunday said importing coal is "unjustified" at a time when the country is sitting on reserves totalling 300 billion tonne.

"When the country is sitting on a huge coal reserve, to import it is unjustified. The production of coal has risen from 432 million tonne to 460 million tonne and will cross 493 million tonne this year, which will be an increase of over 30 million tonne," Goyal told a press conference here.

Even as the process of auctioning 33 coal blocks has been wrapped up, the government is planning to shortly auction coal produced by state-run collieries to players in sectors such as power and steel. It is likely to invite competitive bids for auctioning fuel linkages given by Coal India Ltd to its buyers in these sectors, thereby extending the auction mechanism to even fuel supply pacts.

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