Festival of lights may not turn out to be that dark as feared, as coal stock situation at thermal power plants which had improved to over 10 million tonne by the end of last month from as low as 7-7.5 mt in early October, is expected to further improve to around 12 mt before Diwali.

The improving stock position is likely to ease the power supply situation at a majority of coal-fired plants which had been reeling under depleting fuel stock.

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According to a senior official of Coal India Ltd, the coal pile at power plants climbed to 10.52 mt as on October 30 equivalent to six days’ stock in less than a fortnight, up from 7.3 mt as on October 17. CIL, which registered highest ever daily dispatch to power plants at 1.8 mt towards end October, expects to further boost up the stocks to 12 mt by Diwali. “With concentrated efforts to consolidate dwindling coal stocks at power utilities, the state-owned miner scaled up its supplies to close to 48.2 mt in October clocking a year-on-year growth of around 23 per cent as compared to 39.2 mt same period last year. This was a 42 per cent jump against a Covid-free October 2019 when despatch was around 34 mt,” CIL said.

CIL’s coal supplies to power sector was up by nearly 24 per cent at 294 mt for the period April-October 2021, as against 237.8 mt same period last year.

Against coal consumption of around 1.8 mt per day, by the power sector, the supply from CIL and other sources has been around 2.2 mt during the last week of October, with CIL accounting for the major share.

According to the data available on the website of Central Electricity Authority, the number of plants holding critical or super critical stock levels (holding less than six days’ stock) came down to 83 as on October 29, as compared with around 115 plants as on October 10.

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