Coal India Ltd on Wednesday said it may spend additional Rs 14,500 crore as part of capital expenditure (capex) during the 12th Five Year Plan period that started on April 1, 2012.
Currently, the public sector miner has lined up a capex of Rs 25,400 crore for the five year period that ends on March 31, 2017.
The additional expenditure would be made if regulatory approvals come on time and there is faster progress in land acquisitions, said A.K. Sinha, Director (Finance) of Coal India.
The expenditure would be met from the company’s cash reserves. Coal India reported cash and bank balance of Rs 58,202 crore as on March 31, 2012.
Sinha said that if Coal India gets timely clearances and additional capex is spent, it would surpass 2016-17 production target of 615 million tonnes.
RAILWAY LINE IN CHHATTISGARH
Coal India will spend Rs 2,500 crore to set up a 300 km railway infrastructure in Chhattisgarh.
This line would help to evacuate 120 million tonnes of additional coal, Sinha said. He did not give a timeline of when the project is expected to be commissioned. The line would help evacuate coal from Mand Raigarh fields.
Coal India is in talks with Railways and States to lay three new railways lines in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa to overcome evacuation problems.
Performance
Coal India has achieved 98 per cent of its production target and 97 per cent of offtake target during the first five months (April-August) of the current financial year.
Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal said that monsoon affects mining operations, which prevented the company from achieving complete target. However, it will meet the complete year target of 464.10 million tonnes.
The company mined 162.86 million tonnes during the first five months of the current year against 152.49 million tonnes in the same month the previous year.
The offtake has seen a rise of 5.4 per cent at 181.85 mt during April-August 2012 against 172.48 mt last year.
However, Coal India has seen a drop in its production from underground mines, a major worry for the miner.
It met 91 per cent of the underground output target at 15.69 million tonnes during April-August, which is 0.3 per cent down from 15.74 million tonnes in the same period the previous year.