After struggling to meet coal requirements this financial year, Coal India Limited is now committed to meet demand from power generators for the next financial year.

“The Ministry of Power has raised coal demand of 560 million tonnes for the next financial year. Of this, 525 million tonnes is to be supplied by Coal India and we will meet the demand,” a senior Coal India official said.

“We are confident of meeting the demands of power producers as we ramp up our production facilities and improve the coal transportation infrastructure,” he added.

This is a tall claim considering that during financial year 2017-2018, CIL’s dispatch to the power sector stood at 454.30 million tonnes, 6.8 per cent higher than the 425.42 million tonnes it dispatched in 2016-2017.

CIL’s total coal production for financial year 2017-2018 stood at 568.02 million tonnes, while dispatches stood at 580.50 million tonnes. This includes production for non-coal sectors.

“The higher dispatch than production is due to existing inventory being liquidated,” the official added. “CIL opened financial year 2017-2018 with 68.421 million tonnes of coal inventory. This fell to 29.376 million tonnes during November 2017, when coal demand skyrocketed. On April 1, 2018, the inventory is expected to be 54.83 million tonnes.”

CIL aims to dispatch 155.36 million tonne of coal in the first quarter of 2018-2019, according to the company’s dispatch programme.

The company has reported an improvement in profit before tax over the last two sequential quarters of 2017-2018.

“The improvement in profitability is because of enhanced efficiencies. We have gone for a staggered day of rest for workers even as the mines operate all seven days of the week. We have achieved a ₹53 per tonne reduction in coal production costs,” the official said.

“The capital expenditure target for 2017-2018 has also been breached. This stood at ₹8,693 crore compared to a target of ₹8,500 crore for the current financial year,” he added.

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