Coal supply diversion irks industries dependent on captive power plants

The government’s move to prioritise coal supplies to power plants with minimal coal stock has disrupted fuel supply to some sectors, which have fallen off the dynamic priority queue. The move has prompted the affected industries to write to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) with their concerns.

An official aware of the government’s decision told BusinessLine , “There are 13 thermal power plants with no coal stock and 23–24 plants with critical levels of stock. The higher coal consumption is partly because of lower generation from hydro power and gas-based power plants. From May 20, we have accorded supply priority to power plants with low coal stock.”

The first priority is to meet the demand from power plants that have to supply to distribution companies because the government prioritises supplies to households and grid-connected consumers. Next in the line are Independent Power Producers (IPPs) that can sell power in the spot market. Captive power plants, or power plants set up to serve particular projects such as aluminium, steel or cement plants, come later in the queue. This schedule practically bypasses all the earlier commitments made to projects under the fuel supply agreements.

The arrangement has been institutionalised after a decision jointly taken by the Ministries of Power, Coal and Railways.

The move also impacts Railways’ allocation of rakes to its customers, creating a wagon shortage. Based on the Power Ministry’s recommendation, the Railways directed its sheds to prioritise the indents of the power sector between May 19 and June 30, which is peak summer demand. “This will hit loading of about 20 rakes a day from the total of 430-440 coal rakes a day,” a Railway Ministry official said.

While only a fraction of the rakes has been hit, the normal functioning of Railway customers such as aluminium producers have also been hit.

Samir Cairae, Chief Executive Officer of Diversified Metals – India at Vedanta Ltd, said they are getting only two of the eight rakes of coal committed to them for their aluminium business. “Last fiscal, we got 65 per cent of the annual contracted capacity,” he said.

Writes to PMO

In a letter to the PMO, the Indian Captive Power Producers Association noted that the coal supplied to IPPs rose by 8.1 per cent to 454 million tonnes (mt) in 2017-18 over 2016-17. But there the volume of coal supplied to the captive power producers during the same period has flatlined at 32 mt.

More coal supplies to IPPs will mean businesses can tap the spot power market for cheaper energy. But for aluminium players, here too, the going is not easy. Cairae said, “The power demand from aluminium units in Odisha alone stands at 9,000 MW. The grid in the State will not be able to supply that.”

But Steel Authority of India, another relatively lowly prioritised coal consumer, is not as worried. “We source 80 per cent of our coal through imports. As of now, we do not see any coal shortage,” a company official said.

The “short-term” reshuffling of the queue during the peak demand period has also raised concerns among other customers, including SAIL, who fear the “re-prioritisation” may become the norm. For coal transported from the sidings of Coal India, company officials said the allocation rejig will be assessed weekly and reworked as the supply eases.

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