The Hindu Business Line : SAIL plants to consume more domestic coal

Kolkata, June 17 Steel Authority of India’s (SAIL) plants, according to a tentative plan prepared so far, are to consume more domestic coal in 2009-10 compared with 2008-09.

In the current fiscal, the use of domestic coal is likely to be up by more than 30 per cent at 4.87 million tonnes (mt) over last year’s 3.69 mt. In 2007-08, SAIL plants consumed 3.92 mt of domestic coal. In other words, the consumption of domestic coal in the plants dropped around six per cent in 2008-09 compared with 2007-08.

In 2009-10, SAIL’s import of coking will rise to an estimated 11.2 mt compared with 10.5 mt in 2008-09, thus registering a growth of around five per cent. However, the import in 2008-09 represented about seven per cent growth over 9.9 mt imported in 2007-08. Hard coke accounts for the bulk of the coking coal import.

The port-wise distribution of imports for the current fiscal however is yet to be finalised. In 2008-09, SAIL imported about 1.4 mt through Paradip, 4.4 mt through Haldia and 4.7 mt through Visakhapatnam.

SAIL’s total consumption of coking coal in the current year will be more than 16 mt, up from around 14 mt in 2008-09, registering nearly 14 per cent growth. However, the consumption in 2008-09 over 2007-08 (13.51 mt) posted around four per cent growth.

In 2008-09, SAIL produced 12.5 mt of saleable steel, which in the current fiscal is likely to rise to 13.2 mt, according to the annual performance plan.

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