Coal India says enough supplies, advises power plants to stock up

National miner Coal India Limited (CIL) said on Thursday the country has enough supplies, but power plants must stock up before monsoon shapes production at mines.

CIL has a stockpile of around 43 million tonne (MT). Besides that, the inventory at power plants is 26.2 MT and coal awaiting transportation at private washeries, goods sheds and ports is 4.6 MTs, CIL told 'Business Standard'.

CIL recently issued a tender for purchasing imported coal for power-generating companies (gencos) after the central government directed it to meet the shortfall in the domestic supply chain. CIL has called for bids to supply 2.4 mt of coal to be delivered for the July to September 2022 period. Additionally, it has also issued two more medium-term tenders for sourcing 3 mt each at the western and eastern ports of the country for future stocks.

The company said along with CIL's import tenders, several power units have already placed import orders for 26.7 MTs and another 10 MT tenders are under process.

“All these efforts together ensure coal sufficiency. What is important is that before the monsoon intensifies it would augur well for the power plants to build up coal stocks,” CIL said.

The company said it has augmented its supply to the power sector and in June coal-stock increased by 80,000 tons per day at the end of the power units. “CIL’s production during the first quarter of current fiscal year is at a record high of 29 per cent which would enable further stock build-up. Supply to power sector as well is logging a growth of around 19 per cent,” ‘said the company.