State run miner-Coal India Ltd (CIL) has registered record high coal supplies to the power sector, thus, continuing the impressive performance in the ongoing fiscal of FY’22.
The company has dispatched a total of 493 million tonnes (mnt) coal to the power plants till 3 Mar’22, breaching the previous record of 491.5 mnt attained in FY’19.
This came on the back of robust growth in power demand, compelling the company to raise its coal supplies.
During the first 11 months of the fiscal (Apr’21-Feb’22), coal based power generation has increased nearly 10% y-o-y to 938.43 billion units (BU) against 850.67 BU in the corresponding period of FY’21.
In this period, CIL supplied around 90 mnt more coal to the power sector compared to the dispatches made during the corresponding period last fiscal.
Moreover, there was an additional burden on the company to enhance its supply to the domestic coal-based power plants which had to compensate for the generation loss from the imported coal-based plants amid its soaring prices.
Low inventory levels keep supplies high
The abrupt rise in power demand also resulted in a drastic fall in plants’ coal inventories, taking it to a 3-year low of 11.41 mnt at the end of Sept’21. Since then, the power plants have been in a recovery mode.
At the end of Feb’22, the coal stock level improved to 25.97 mnt, but was still down 27% y-o-y compared to 35.44 mnt in end-Feb’21.
Maintaining higher supplies to the plants, CIL’s average dispatches increased to 1.72 mnt/day in Feb’22 against 1.63 mnt/day in Jan’22. Also, it was 21% higher on the year compared to 1.42 mnt/day in Feb’21.
With power demand expected to escalate in the peak summer season, the company has set a target of 548 mnt of coal dispatches for FY’22 as projected by the Central Electricity Authority.
Leave a Reply