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Coal India will have to work fast to mine more than 150 million tonnes in the fourth quarter of 2012-13 to meet its full year target.
In the first three quarters (April-December 2012), the public sector company mined 308.89 million tonnes. The whole year production target is set at 464.10 million tonnes.
The company is under constant pressure to mine more coal to meet increasing demand from several sectors, especially thermal power generation stations.
“To achieve the production target, the required growth rate is 6.5 per cent, which we are confident to achieve. The more crucial is offtake target,” said S. Narsing Rao, Chairman and Managing Director of Coal India.
“On one side it is quite challenging to achieve more than 150 million tonnes production in the fourth quarter. But the silver lining is that we have already achieved higher output compared to last year,” he told Business Line .
However, pending environmental and forest approvals may prove to be major hiccups to clinching production targets, he cautioned.
The public sector miner clocked 6.1 per cent growth in production during April-December 2012.
It mined 308.89 million tonnes in the first three quarters of 2012-13 against 291.24 million tonnes in the same months last year.
However, the company took a hit during October-November, with production increasing by just 2.4 per cent in the third quarter of the current fiscal year.
This is because of untimely rains and festival holidays affecting work at the mines.
OFFTAKE
Coal India registered 7.9 per cent growth in offtake during the first nine months of 2012-13.
The public sector miner delivered 335 million tonnes of coal during April-December 2012 (310.5 million tonnes).
The increase in offtake is primarily because of increased rake availability and clearing pithead stock. Coal India had pithead stock of about 70.88 million tonnes as on April 1, 2012, which reduced to 43.93 million tonnes as on December 31.
In the third quarter of the current financial year, offtake was up by 8.9 per cent.
The public sector miner delivered 120.2 million tonnes of coal during October-December 2012 (110.4 million tonnes).
siddhartha.s@thehindu.co.in
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