Coal India expects 2.5% production growth (Lead)

Kolkata, March 28 : After achieving a 9 per cent growth in coal production in the last financial year, Coal India expects to conclude this fiscal with a 2.5 per cent growth in production and 2 per cent increase in coal off-take, an official said on Tuesday.

"This year, the production was impacted due to issues at Talcher mine and also issues related to rehabilitation and resettlement," said the miner's Director, Marketing S.N. Prasad on the sidelines of 'Coal: Emerging Perspectives and Challenges', organised by the Bharat Chamber of Commerce.

During 2016-17, Coal India had set a target of producing 598.61 million tonnes (mt) of coal with an 11.11 per cent growth over 538.75 mt produced by it in 2015-16.

The miner achieved 9 per cent production growth in the last fiscal, he said.

Its provisional data showed its production during the first 11 months (April-February) of the current fiscal grew by 2.3 per cent to 488.06 mt as against a target of 535.38 mt, set for the period. Its off-take was also at 534.50 mt in the last fiscal.

According to the data, off-take from April 2016 to February 2017 was at 490.86 mt as against a target of 540.31 mt.

Prasad said about 100 mt of coal stock was available at pit heads and thermal power plants.

Projected production volume is 660.7 mt in 2017-18 and it envisaged production of 908.10 mt in 2019-20 with a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 12.98 per cent, with respect to 2014-15.

He said none of the power plants are keeping coal stocks upto the normative requirement of 22 days as mandated by Central Electricity Authority. "They are keeping the stocks for about 10-15 days because they are confident that whenever they demand, they will get coal from us," Prasad said.

On coal quality, he said in the next financial year, it would be assessed by Coal Controller Office by third party agencies.

"Third party validation for coal supplies has been started with power sector consumers and about 400 million tonnes have been covered under third party validation, out of 517 odd mt covered under fuel supply agreement. The third party validation would also be extended to non-regulated consumers," he said.

According to the Coal India official, the miner hopes to increase the consumption of domestic coal by coastal power plants.

"We now aim for import substitution. So far as domestic coal for power sector is concerned, our target is to make imports zero from next year," he added.