Amid crunch, CIL scales up coal supply to power plants
NEW DELHI: State-owned CIL on Monday said it has scaled up the supply of coal to power utilities across the country to 1.51 million tonnes (mt) per day during the past four days of the current month, and stressed that it is building up adequate evacuation logistics to transport the dry fuel.
The development assumes significance in the wake of reports that warned of a power crisis looming large due to the coal shortage in the country.
“With calls for more coal gaining tempo, Coal India Ltd (CIL), amid renewed urgency, scaled up supplies to power utilities of the country to 1.51 million tonnes (mt) per day during the past four days of October ahead of the festival,” it said.
The average supplies to the coal-fired power plants during October so far has been 1.43 mt per day, which has now been augmented to 1.51 mt in the past four days.
CIL added that it is marshalling all its efforts to bridge the demand-supply gap to the extent possible. With 40 million tonnes stock at its pitheads and increasing, the availability of coal would not be a problem.
The total offtake has gone up to 1.73 mt per day during October (till Sunday), posting a 10 per cent jump over the same period last year.
CIL Director (Marketing) S N Tiwary said, “The aim is to ramp up supplies to the power sector even higher which we hope to achieve after Puja. Once the despatch rate is maintained, the stock build-up will help tide over the tight situation.” Despite heavy rainfall, CIL produced about 126 mt of coal during the second quarter of the current financial year, setting a record high for the second quarter, posting a 9.6% y-o-y growth.
During the first 10 days of October, CIL’s output has logged 6.5% growth over last October.
Going forward, the production will increase further when the attendance at coalfields improves after festival holidays.
CIL’s supplies to power generation companies (gencos) have been at an all-time high till now this fiscal but it is the never-experienced-before hunger for the dry fuel, spurred by an unmatched increase in power generation that upset the demand-supply scales.
Once October and major festivals are over, conditions will improve and the power demand is expected to be down by a notch, easing the pressure, it said.