Coal India output rises 14 per cent to 177 million tonnes in four months

State-owned CIL today said it produced 177.43 million tonnes of coal in the first four months of the ongoing fiscal, registering a growth of 14 per cent. It had produced 155.53 million tonnes (MT) of coal in the year-ago period, Coal India Ltd said in a filing to BSE. In July CIL produced 40.56 MT coal, against 36.69 a year ago. The state-owned firm accounts for over 80 per cent of the domestic coal production.

CIL has pegged its production estimate at 630 MT in 2018-19. In a separate statement, the PSU said it registered double digit growth of 15.1 per cent in coal supplies to thermal power plants (TPPs) during the April-July period, compared to a year ago. Coal supplies by CIL to TPPs perked up to 161.71 MT during the April-July period of the current fiscal, compared to 140.50 same period last financial year, it said.

The increased supply was a result of higher rake loading to power sector which witnessed a growth of 12.5 per cent during the referred period. “Coal production and total off-take also steamed ahead with robust growths of 14.1 per cent and 11 per cent respectively during April-July 2018 on a year-on-year comparison,” it said.

“We are doing the best we could to meet the demand of the power sector by supplying increased quantities of coal. So far, we have been able to sustain the double-digit growth trend in the three important parameters of production, off-take and supplies to the power sector, since the beginning of the fiscal,” an official of the company said. The monsoon months are challenging but we are garnering our best efforts to continue the same trend, the official added.

“Coal stocks at the power utilities doubled to 15.78 MT ending July 2018 (30th July) compared to 7.3 MT as of October 2017.” CIL said. It said close coordination between coal ministry, railways ministry and CIL for enhanced evacuation of coal resulted in 12.5 per cent growth in average rake loading, per day, to power sector during April-July period.

With an assessment suggesting the current trend may not warrant pursuing the projected coal output target of 1 billion tonnes by 2020, the government had in April gave indication of revising the production target of the dry fuel. The government had earlier set a target of 1 billion tonnes of coal output by 2019-20 for CIL.

However, the government had in December last year said that of 1.5 billion tonnes the country is expected to produce by 2022 and of this, 1 billion tonnes would come from Coal India.