Despite registering a 7 per cent growth in production and 4.8 per cent rise in offtake, Coal India Ltd (CIL) has fallen short of its target of 610 million tonne (mt) for FY-19 marginally — by 3 mt and 2 mt, respectively.

CIL produced around 607 mt of coal during 2018-19, a volume increase of close to 39.5 mt against the previous year’s production of 567.37 mt.

“The growth in coal production during the referred period is almost three-fold compared to last fiscal’s growth of 2.4 per cent,” said a press statement issued by the company.

The company’s subsidiaries — Eastern Coalfields (ECL), Northern Coalfields (NCL), Central Coalfields (CCL) and Western Coalfields (WCL) — have also surpassed their respective production targets for FY 2019.

Growth in rake loading

Supply of coal to consuming sectors increased by 28 mt to 608 mt in 2018-19.

CIL supplied around 488 mt of coal to thermal power plants in FY19, compared with 454 mt supplied last fiscal, a growth of over 7 per cent.

Rake loading to the power sector grew 11.2 per cent, with CIL loading 255.6 rakes per day on an average to power stations as against 229.8 rakes per day in the year-ago period.

With increased supply, stocks at coal linkage-based power stations in the country swelled to 30.41 mt (as of March 28, 2019).

This represents inventory of 18 days, close to the mandated 22 days.

“At the end of FY 2019, not a single power station in the country is in the critical or supercritical list of Central Electricity Authority for want of coal. At the end of last fiscal, there were 28 power plants in critical mode,” the release said.

Coal stocks at CIL’s pitheads stood at around 54 mt at the end of FY19

With a total combined stock of 84.41 mt at power plants and pitheads, there is sufficient coal in the system to meet the country’s demand.

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