Industry & Economy
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Power
Paucity of imported coal hits western region
Badal Sanyal
Kolkata
,
Feb. 26
RELIANCE Energy and Gujarat State Electricity Board, among other bulk coal consuming industries in the western region, are reportedly in rough weather due to non-availability of imported coal. Available market information indicates that industries in Gujarat alone import from South Africa about five million tonnes (mt) of coal, of which two mt will be non-coking and the remaining coking.
In a given situation, coal consumers from Gujarat have approached Western Coalfields Ltd (WCL) and South Eastern Coalfields Ltd (SECL) to bail them out from the crisis arising out of non-availability of imported coal on which they, to some extent, depend on. Incidentally, these two subsidiaries of Coal India Ltd have been approached due to geographical proximity.
Both the state-owned coal companies, in turn, have pleaded their inability to arrange additional supplies due to logistics problems. The coal consuming industries have been asked to find out alternatives to meet the shortfall in imported coal.
When contacted, the Chairman & Managing director of WCL, Mr Ashok Mehta, said over telephone from Nagpur that he had received enquiries for additional supply of coal to compensate the shortfall.
But he felt that it would not be possible for the company to satisfy their demand, although WCL was poised to produce about 1.5 mt more during the current fiscal at 39 mt against the targeted 37.5 mt.
Similarly, the CMD of SECL, Mr M.K. Thapar, said from Bilaspur that his company was not bothered about the consumers who have no coal linkage with SECL mines.
He said that SECL would be able to produce about 63 mt as against the target of about 60 mt during the current fiscal.
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