Coal India registers highest nine-month growth since pre-Covid level

Coal India (CIL) has touched 479 million tonnes (MT) of coal production during the nine months of the current fiscal year. This marks a 16 per cent growth over the same period last year and is the highest for this period in the last three years.

Compared to the April-December period of 2019, the company’s coal production grew by 23 per cent.

In a public statement, CIL said that the production of 66.4 MT for December 2022 was the highest this fiscal so far. It was 6.2 MT ahead compared to the same month last year with a growth of 10.3 per cent, it said.

“To outdo the annual output target of 700 MT, CIL has to produce 221 MT in Q4 of FY23 against 209 MT for the comparable quarter last fiscal. Our production pace is already up and is expected to rise further. Another point in our favour is large quantities of overburden removal. We feel positive about scaling over the output target,” a company executive said.

The current year marks a strong rebound in coal production even as several power generators complained of coal shortage during the high demand summer months.

While CIL maintained there is enough supply, it increased the production as well as offtake to the power sector specifically.

“Coal supplies during April-December 2022 to the power sector — at 432.7 MT — were up by a strong 42.5 MT. This is an 11 per cent year-on-year (YoY) growth. CIL supplied 390.2 MT to coal-fired plants in the similar period last year,” the company said.

From August 2021, supply to the non-power sector was regulated to divert more coal to the power generation units. In the last one year, the non-power sector has seen coal despatch falling by more than 30 per cent.

In a recent statement, CIL claimed that it supplied 10.5 MT to the non-power sector in December, the highest for the fiscal so far. This, it said, was on the back of higher production.

However, the Coal Consumers Association of India, in a recent letter to the Union ministry of coal, said, despite the boost in production and supply, the non-power sector is still not getting enough coal.

“The coal supply scenario to the non-power sector, especially via the rail mode, is still languishing far below the required level. Owing to severe curtailment of coal supply via rakes, many industries, including continuous process plants, had to convert the mode of supply from rail to road. This was done to sustain plant operations,” the association said in a letter last month.

The miner has a production target of 700 MT this fiscal.

In a recent interview to this paper, Union coal minister Pralhad Joshi said, “Whatever is the demand from the power sector, it will be met by domestic coal during this fiscal. Production of CIL last year was 622 MT, and this year, it will be 700 MT.

Overall coal production in the country will be 900 MT during the next fiscal. By 2023-24, domestic coal production will be 1 billion tonnes and CIL will produce 700 MT.”