Coal India to boost supplies to power stations

4 September 2017

Supplies by Coal India to power utilities witnessed 11% growth during August 2017 in comparison to the previous corresponding period.

This helped coal fired power generation go up by 18% during the period. Till 27th August, the company supplied 26.5 million tonnes of coal to generating units against 23.9 MTs on a like-to-like comparison of previous year.

Progressive despatch during April-August 2017, including despatch through special forward auction for power was around 166 million tonnes, up 6 million tonnes over same period last year reflecting a growth of 3.7%.

In the face of hydel power generation falling by some 11% during the month, CILBSE 0.15 % with its increased supplies helped the generating units meet a portion of additional power demand in the country. However, increased power demand has substantially reduced stocks at power plants by almost 4 million tonnes in August.

“If the depletion of stocks leads to higher demand for coal, CIL would be able to pick up the production to higher levels suiting to the demand for the coal,” a senior Coal India executive said.

Coal imports during April-July 2017 was 19.29 million tonnes which is 19% less than the previous corresponding period because Coal India stepped up supplies to meet demand. During the comparable period previous year, coal imports were 23.76 million tonnes.

In a bid to boost coal supplies to thermal power plants the company is temporarily regulating coal movement to non-power sector pushing additional coal to these plants. To pool in logistic capability of thermal power plants, coal is being offered on ‘as is where is’ from stocks in Central Coalfields, Western Coalfields, Bharat Coking Coal and Mahanadi Coalfields.

GenCos have also been asked to utilize flexi-utilization facility to optimize coal movement to plants with critical coal stocks. Coal India has also asked NTPC, to prioritize movement of coal to their plants on the basis of its stocks at different plants.

Additionally, CIL is synergizing its efforts with railways to prioritize movement of coal to plants with critical coal stock. Average loading of rakes per day went up 8% during August 2017. The company loaded 204 rakes a day compared to 188.6 rakes during same period last year. Of the entire railway loading during the month around 85% of it was for the power sector.

Progressively, for the period April-August (27th) average rake loading per day is 215.1 against 204.5 during the comparable period.

Source-ET