Energy. Coal India’s e-auction bookings grow 42 per cent during April-August

Coal India’s e-auction bookings has seen a 42 per cent growth during the April-August period of this year.

The increased bookings came on the back of a “demand spike in coal-based power generation and soaring international coal prices”, compared to the same period a year ago, the world’s largest miner said in a release.

CIL booked 53.3 million tonnes of coal in the first five months of FY22, under the five auction categories. This is nearly 16 million tonnes higher than the 37.5 million tonnes booked in the year-ago period.

The add-on fetched was 30 per cent over notified prices, CIL said in its release.

Amid the spiralling international prices, non-power sector customers, under their exclusive auction window, opted for domestic coal, accounting for 37 per cent or 19.7 million tonnes of the total auction bookings during the five-month period.

With the upsurge in coal-based power generation, bookings by power sector customers under the special forward auction more than doubled to 17.3 million tonnes for the period under review, as against the 8 million tonnes booked in the corresponding period a year ago.

With international coal prices soaring, generation from 14 imported coal-based power plants (that source coal from overseas), dropped by 20 per cent during the five-month period to 23.63 MW (from 29.67 MW in the same period last year).

For August, the generation was 3.95 MW, a 30 per cent drop, against 5.64 MW in the same month last year.

With demand for domestic coal rising, CIL has stepped up supplies to the power sector in the first eight days of September, registering growth of around 20 per cent at an average of 1.39 million tonnes per day. In September last year, the average supply per day was 1.16 million tonnes.

CIL’s total supply also logged 1.71 million tonnes per day during the first eight days of the ongoing month, compared to 1.49 million tonnes per day last year, achieving a growth of nearly 15 per cent, the company said in a statement.

Coal India aims to augment total supply further to a level of 1.8 million tonnes per day; and at 1.45 million tonnes per day to the power sector, it added.