The Hindu Business Line : Coal throughput declines at Paradip port

PARADIP port's thermal coal throughput is showing a downward trend. The port has targeted to handle one million tonnes of thermal coal every month on an average.

The average was maintained in April and May. From June, the throughput has been on the decline. In June, it was 8.62 lakh tonnes and, if the current trend is any indication, July will end up with a throughput of 7.5 lakh tonnes.

This has caused concern to the port authorities. The thermal coal alone accounts for 40 per cent of the port's total traffic.

The drop is attributed to drastic slashing of the linkage - from 8.4 lakh tonnes a month during the first quarter (April to June) to 6.1 lakh tonnes a month in the current quarter (July to September). As a result, there is no ground stock available at the port premises leading to detention of the dedicated coal carriers such as "Gem of Ennore" and "Rani Padmini" engaged in transportation of coal for Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) between Paradip and Ennore/Tuticorin ports; worse, the capacity of these vessels remains grossly underutilised even after the detention. The port has the ground stock capacity of 650,000 tonnes.

The cutback on the linkage is due to the sudden jump in NTPC's demand for coal as a sequel to the commissioning of two additional units of 500 MW each at Talcher plant. NTPC now wants 42,000 tonnes of coal (equivalent of 14 rakes) every day as compared to 30,000 tonnes (10 rakes) till recently.

But this additional demand can be met only at the cost of TNEB whose requirement of coal is also met from the same Talcher mines of Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd.

The daily throughput of the Talcher mines is equivalent of 19 rakes a day. If 14 rakes go to NTPC plant every day, only five rakes of coal a day will be available for TNEB against nine rakes a day in the previous quarter.

The argument of coal linkage committee is that TNEB can make up for the shortfall in the supply from Talcher mines by lifting more from IB Valley mines. In fact, the linkage for the IB Valley has been stepped up, marginally though, to 2.9 lakh tonnes a month for the current quarter as compared to 2.85 lakh tonnes a month in the previous quarter. The IB Valley coal is routed through Visakhapatnam port.

For the current quarter, TNEB's linkages of ECL (Eastern Coalfied Ltd) coal routed through Haldia dock have been pegged at 2.55 lakh tonnes a month as compared to three lakh tonnes a month in the last quarter. However, even the reduced linkage is not becoming available thanks to various problems afflicting the ECL mines.

PPT sources fear that the present crisis may not be short-term in nature. This is because some of the mines in MCL are being closed down while new mines linked to NTPC's new units are yet to be opened. There may be delay in opening new mines because of the environmental and eviction problems.

PPT therefore is of the view that part of the allocations made for Karnataka Power Corporation can be diverted to TNEB. This is because KPCL's offtake in the last quarter (April to June) was barely half of the linkage of 1.75 lakh tonnes a month. Yet it has been given a higher linkage of 2.25 lakh tonnes a month for the current quarter (July-September).