Public sector coal producer Coal India Ltd (CIL) has reported a 13.4 per cent increase in production during July, at 53.6 million tonnes (MT), from 47.3 MT a year ago.
CIL’s output soared to 229.1 MT until July in the current financial year, achieving 99 per cent target, and is nearly on track with the asking growth rate for the year.
With 22.2MT increase in volume terms, CIL logged 10.7 per cent growth, compared to 207 MT during April to July 2022.
According to the company, its chase for 780 MT production in FY 2024 began with an asking growth rate of 10.9 per cent over the 703 MT produced in FY 2023.
“All our subsidiaries have registered growth over previous FY, with SECL coming back strongly with 10 MT production increase. BCCL, NCL, WCL and SECL have sailed past their respective targets progressively till July 2023,” said a senior official of the company.
Supply surge
CIL’s supplies peaked to 58.3 MT in July 2023, posting a strong 7.2 per cent growth over 54.4 MT of July 2022. Increase in absolute terms was 3.9 MTs.
Total supplies during the April to July 2023 period to all consuming sectors stood at 244.5 MT, clocking 5.7 per cent growth over a high base of 231.2. MT during the same period last fiscal. Supplies on a year-on-year basis have witnessed 13.3MT expansion during the first four months of the financial year.
With no let-up in momentum since the beginning of the current fiscal, CIL continues to supply more to the non-power sector (NPS), growing by a robust 59 per cent to 11.7 MT in July compared to a year ago.
NPS supply during the month alone grew by 4.3 MT; during the April to July 2023 period it grew by 40 per cent to 45.2 MT, from 32.2 MT a year ago.
With supplies to the power sector stabilised and no pressure of criticality at plants, the company could meet the NPS demand.
Coal-fired plants
CIL supplied 201.5 MT to domestic coal-fired plants until July of the ongoing fiscal year, with a comparative growth of 1 per cent.
It has provided a comfortable buffer to domestic coal-based plants, which reported a stock of 33 MT as of July-end, the company said. This is almost on par with the stock at the beginning of the year, with not much contraction. Coal inventory at CIL’s end is 53 MT.
An all-time high removal of overburden gives CIL a leg-up for future production, which, at 641 million cubic metres, has achieved 111 per cent target, with 29.3 per cent y-o-y growth., it said.