India’s largest coal producing company, CIL (Coal India Ltd) had set an annual goal of producing 660 MnT of coal for the ongoing fiscal year of 2019-20 ending March 2020, which is higher by 8.5% against the previous fiscal’s output of 608 MnT.
However, according to the provisional data, the company have produced 330.4 MnT of coal in first eight months of FY20 (Apr-Nov’19), down by 7.8% y-o-y basis, and is expected to churn out a total of 390 MnT of coal till the end of December month. This means that the company is still short of 270 MnT to achieve its set annual target.
According to the market sources, the company has decided to raise its daily coal production from the existing 1.8 MnT to 2.9 MnT especially in Feb and March month of the upcoming year so that it could inch closer to its goal. It is being said that unless the miner increases its daily production to 2.5 MnT per day from January to March period, it will struggle to surpass the production figure of the last fiscal.
Coal India’s offtake at 363.6 MnT during April- November period was down by 7.2% from 392.02 MnT supplied in the year-ago period. While as per the reports, CIL’s coal offtake was at 410 MnT till December 27, 2019 as against a target of 467 MnT.
The company’s two major subsidiaries, MCL and SECL’s coal production have taken a severe hit this fiscal due to severe monsoon and also due to law and order issues. Both the companies have recorded a negative growth of around 15% and 10% y-o-y basis respectively in their coal production as of 27 Dec’19. While the units are trying to ramp up their production despite all odds, the overall demand of coal from thermal power plants have suffered a setback this year due to rise in electricity generation from other sources and the overall slowdown in the country’s economy and if the trend continued in the upcoming months also, the company’s production and dispatch may have an take a hit.
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