Coal India Ltd (CIL),the largest-coal producer in the country, has been asked to produce 630 MnT coal in FY19 (Apr’18-Mar’19) by the Indian Government.
Considering the rising demand of coal in the country, the Coal Ministry has increased the coal production target by 5% Y-o-Y than the target of 600 MnT set for FY18 (Apr’17-Mar’18).
CIL’s coal production in FY18 has increased 2% Y-o-Y to 383.93 MnT during Apr’17-Dec’17, compared with 377.51 MnT during the same period in the previous year. However, the company failed to achieve the production target of 406.58 MnT set for the period by 6%.
The shortfall from the coal production target was primarily due to the accumulation of high coal stock as a result of lesser coal lifting by customers’ up to Jul’17, because of which CIL had limited its coal production during that period. However, as the demand of coal picked up, production has been increased accordingly.
Moreover, production was hampered during Jun’17-Sep’17 due to the excessive rain in coal mining areas, only after which the company was able to pick up the production process.
CIL is envisaged to enhance its coal production to the level of 1 BnT by 2019-20 from current level production of 554.14 MnT achieved in FY17. In this regard, the company has also identified mines with production capacity of 908 MnT.
Coal Off-take Target:
CIL was also provided with off-take target of 600 MnT by the Coal Ministry, while finalizing the annual plan for 2017-18. Total coal off-take of CIL stood 421.21 MnT during Apr’17-Dec’17, which was 8% higher compared with 391.53 MnT in Apr’16-Dec’16. Thereby the company managed to achieve 98% of its off-take target of 432.11 MnT for the period.
In order to achieve the annual target of coal-off take, CIL is required to ramp up its daily coal production to more than 2 MnT during the remaining days of the fiscal FY18.
Coal Reserve in India:
As per “The inventory of Geological Resources of Indian Coal” the total estimated quantum of coal reserves in the country was 315.149 BnT as on 01 Apr’17.
At the present rate of exploitation, coal reserves will last for a considerable period, Honorable Coal Minster Mr. Piyush Goyal commented while replying to a questionnaire raised in the parliament.
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