Coal India Limited (CIL), for the first time, had breached the 600 MnT mark in coal production and off-take during the fiscal year ending on 31 Mar’19, clocking growths of 7% and 4.8% respectively.
In terms of coal output, the Maharatna coal mining giant had produced 606.9 MnT of coal during FY19 almost reaching its MoU target of 610 MnT.
In fact, the 7% growth in coal production during the referred period was almost three-fold high compared to last fiscal’s growth rate of 2.4%.
The volume increase in coal production during the period has been a robust 39.5 MnT against previous year’s production of 567.37 MnT.
CIL scaled a new peak in production in the month of Mar’19 producing 79.2 MnT – the highest so far in a month since inception. In doing so, the PSU coal mining monolith clocked highest ever production of 3.14 MnT in a single day as on 25 Mar’19.
The upbeat production tempo of the world’s largest coal producer in the recent years was evident in the fact that it leaped from the 500 MnT production to 600 MnT in a mere three years, whereas it took the company seven years to migrate from 400 MnT mark to that of 500 MnT.
Subsidiary-wise Coal Production:
During the FY19, SECL remained the largest coal producing subsidiary of CIL.
Apart from BCCL, all the remaining 7 coal producing units of CIL had recorded a positive growth y-o-y in FY19. Besides, ECL, CCL, NCL and WCL had surpassed their respective production targets.
In fact, NCL went past its production target of 100 MnT five days ahead of the closure of the fiscal, in the process becoming the third subsidiary of CIL to join the coveted 100 MnT producing companies after SECL and MCL.
In another new high SECL became the first subsidiary company of CIL to cruise over 150 MnT production mark. ECL and WCL attained 50 MnT plus output for the first time.
CIL’s Coal Off-take
CIL’s coal supplies to the consuming sectors touched a new high at 608 MnT during FY19 coming close to its MoU target of 610 MnT.
The increase in absolute figures was 28 MnT compared to last year’s off-take of 580.29 MnT registering a growth of 4.8%.
Scripting a new high in coal supplies to thermal power plants of the country, CIL supplied 488 MnT of coal in FY19 against 454 MnT supplied last fiscal, the increase in volume terms being approximately 34 MTs clocking a year-on-year growth of 7.4%.
The enormous growth in CIL’s coal dispatch to power sector was made possible as a result of the synergy between Railways, MoC and MoP.
Consequently, rake loading to power sector grew by a healthy rate of 11.2% during FY19. CIL as a whole loaded 255.6 rakes/day on average to power plants in FY19, against 229.8 rakes/day for year ago period.
Improvement in condition of power sector:
With increased supply, coal stocks at linkage based power stations in the country has swelled to 30.947 MnT as on 31 Mar’19 sufficient for 18 days of power generation, which is close to the mandated 22 days.
Notably, at the end of FY19 not a single power station in the country is in critical or super critical list of CEA for want of coal. Whereas, at the end of last fiscal there were 28 power plants in critical mode.
Coal stock at CIL’s pitheads was reported around 54 MnT at the end of the FY19.
With a total combined coal stock of 84 MnT at power plants and pitheads, CIL has claimed that there is sufficient coal in the system to meet the demand of the country.
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