Coal India Ltd’s coal allocation via auction route has attained its highest total for the fiscal, in line with the bulk volume being offered for sale.
The miner had sold 16.81 mn t coal in the auctions during Oct ’20, thereby recording an exponential growth of 285% m-o-m from 4.37 mn t in Sep ’20.
Decision to restore upper cap on notified price for these auctions tempted the subsidiaries to offer more coal in order to raise domestic coal availability and in turn generate higher revenue. Moreover, introduction of special spot auction scheme for coal importers exclusively modified to promote import substitution also helped the cause.
However, no drastic improvement was seen in terms of premium received for the coal sales with most industries still undergoing the path of recovery. Price realization for the booked quantity was assessed 9% lower on the month at INR 1336.53/t in Oct ’20 against INR 1464.67/t in Sep ’20.
Scheme-wise allocation:
(a) Major chunk of the coal volume was offered in special forward auctions, but no urgency was seen from the power producers who are sitting comfortably with ample coal stock to carry out their operations.
Only 28% of the coal was booked in the auctions, wherein no bids was recorded for sales conducted by BCCL and CCL. (Detailed subsidiary-wise auction summary can be seen here).
(b) Exclusive auction specifically conducted for non-power sector also garnered similar response, nevertheless, superior grade coal from CCL incited higher premium compared to the sale conducted by MCL.
(c) All the subsidiaries had offered coal in spot scheme of auction, wherein 5.06 mn t coal was sold at a healthy premium of 23% over the notified price.
(d) Special spot auction for coal importers got-off to a decent start, with NCL, CCL and SECL carrying out the proceedings in the month. Nearly 30% coal being offered was lifted by the buyers (highest allocation recorded among the various auction schemes) at a premium of 14% over the notified price.
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