CIL’s mining arm in Maharashtra, Western Coalfields Ltd (WCL), has decided to reduce floor price for auction in order to provide cheaper coal to its power and non-power consumers during the lock-down period.
Reserve price for spot coal auction was slashed by 10% to 20% over the notified price, while for special forward auction, the price would be 8% over the notified price instead of 18%.
The company has highlighted that the reduced coal price would be applied from ‘mine specific source’ for auctions conducted in Apr’20, while floor price from remaining mines would remain unaffected. Thereafter, the earlier price scheme would be continued.
It is pertinent to note that WCL had identified 11 mine specific sources last year, for which the sale price was set at an additional price of INR 450/MT. These were- Dinesh, Makardhokra-I, Gokul, Bhanegaon, Singhori, Penganga, Yekona, Pauni II, Mungoli, Niljai and Gondegaon.
These mines offered cheaper coal to the interstate power plants which were earlier getting costly coal from mines located in Eastern India due to extra railway freight. Consequently, under a policy, WCL requested power entities to share this gain by adding INR 450/MT over the notified price for these specific mines.
The revised price cut for spot auction has been implemented in the spot auction for Apr’20 wherein 706,000 MT coal is offered for sale on 17 Apr’20.
Incidentally, reserve price for 20,000 MT G8 grade of coal from mine specific source ‘Gokul’ was affixed at INR 3395/MT, which was 20% higher than the notified price of INR 2829/MT.
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