India coastal coal shipments gain momentum as east-to-south power corridor strengthens

• Paradip emerges as dominant coastal coal loading hub
• Southern power utilities drive domestic seaborne coal movement

India’s coastal coal trade is emerging as an increasingly important alternative logistics route for power generators located far from the country’s eastern coal-producing regions, with August vessel movements revealing a concentrated east-to-south supply corridor.
BigMint vessel data identify 1.125 Mnt of sailed coastal non-coking coal loadings between 19-27 August, while approximately 1.003 Mnt was recorded as completed coastal unloading between 20-26 August.
These figures should not be added because they represent different stages of the same logistics chain: loading records capture coal leaving an origin port, while unloading records capture cargo reaching its destination.
They are also not full-August totals. The supplied dataset is labelled 1-28 August, but the available coastal movements begin on 19 August, making the recorded volumes partial-month figures.
Paradip dominates coastal coal loadings
The data record 18 sailed coastal loading movements totalling 1.125 Mnt.

Paradip accounted for about four-fifths of identified coastal loadings, establishing it as the principal gateway in the available data for moving domestic coal towards distant consuming regions.
Cargoes were associated with power-sector buyers including SEIL, APPDCL, APGENCO, OPG Power, Tamil Nadu Power Corporation and NTPC Tamil Nadu Energy. Individual parcels frequently ranged between 50,000-79,000 t.

Southern India absorbs almost 95% of receipts
Completed coastal unloadings totalled approximately 1.003 Mnt, with southern ports overwhelmingly dominating receipts.

Krishnapatnam, Ennore, Tuticorin and Kakinada together received approximately 0.950 Mnt, or nearly 95% of completed coastal receipts.
The only identified completed western movement was a 53,739 t Paradip-Dharamtar cargo for MAHAGENCO.
The pattern therefore points overwhelmingly towards an east-to-south domestic coal corridor.

Power generators underpin coastal demand
Utilities dominate the receiver profile. Identifiable power-sector consumers accounted for at least 0.854 Mnt, or around 85% of completed receipts.
TANGEDCO was the largest identified receiver at around 0.224 Mnt, followed by Sembcorp Energy India at 0.157 Mnt and AP GENCO at 0.136 Mnt. Other buyers included Meenakshi Energy, NTPC Tamil Nadu Energy, OPG Power, APPDCL and MAHAGENCO.
Krishnapatnam was particularly active, receiving four completed cargoes totalling approximately 0.292 Mnt on 24 August alone, for APPDCL, Sembcorp, AP GENCO and Meenakshi Energy.
This suggests coastal shipping is functioning primarily as a utility-fuel logistics channel, rather than a fragmented industrial trade.

Panamax vessels underpin large-scale movement
Approximately 85% of completed coastal loadings moved on Panamax vessels, with cargo sizes commonly around 70,000-79,000 t.
This scale matters. Moving large parcels by sea potentially allows utilities to reduce their dependence on multiple long-distance railway movements from eastern coal-producing regions.
Activity also remained in the pipeline. The dataset shows around 0.147 Mnt of unloading cargo at anchorage and another 0.394 Mnt expected, while approximately 0.141 Mnt of loading cargo was at anchorage and 0.520 Mnt expected. These figures cannot be combined because some represent different stages of the same cargo.

Coastal shipping offers alternative to long-haul rail
The geographical structure of these flows is perhaps the most important implication.
Much of India’s coal production is concentrated in eastern and central regions, while substantial power-generation capacity lies much farther away in southern and western India.
Moving coal entirely by rail over long distances increases freight costs and consumes more railway capacity and wagon-days. Coastal shipping provides an alternative:
Coalfield to eastern port to coastal vessel to destination port to power plant.
For plants with suitable port connectivity, this can reduce the portion of the journey dependent on long-haul rail.
Coastal shipping should therefore be viewed as complementing rather than replacing rail. Shifting suitable coastal consumers towards rail-plus-sea transportation can potentially release railway capacity from some of the longest coal journeys, particularly during periods of elevated power-sector demand.

Delivered cost becomes the critical comparison
There is also a wider commercial implication.
Southern and western coastal consumers effectively have three supply alternatives: domestic coal transported entirely by rail, domestic coal moved through rail-plus-coastal shipping, and imported coal delivered through nearby ports.
The relevant comparison is therefore delivered cost at the consuming plant, not simply domestic mine prices versus international coal prices.
Rail freight, coastal or ocean freight, port handling and final inland transportation all determine competitiveness.
The August vessel pattern shows Indian utilities are already using coastal shipping at meaningful scale to address this logistics equation.
Paradip accounted for around 80% of identified loadings, while Krishnapatnam, Ennore and Tuticorin absorbed nearly 89% of completed unloadings.
This points towards an increasingly defined domestic energy corridor linking eastern coal supply with southern power demand.
As coal requirements rise, India’s challenge may increasingly shift from simply how much coal can be produced to how efficiently it can be delivered. Coastal shipping could become an important part of that solution.

Note: The supplied vessel dataset is labelled 1-28 August 2026, but available coastal records begin on 19 August. The 1.125 Mnt loading and 1.003 Mnt unloading figures are therefore partial-month identified volumes. Loading and unloading records are analysed separately to avoid double counting.