Coal imports in India, the world’s 3rd largest coal importing country, have fallen by 3% to around 18.3 MnT in Oct’14 (M-o-M).
Devastating cyclone Hudhud hits few major ports such as Ganngavaram and Vizag based on East Coast of India on 12 Oct, 2014. Post cyclone, the port authorities had halted the operations for few days, which in turn has hampered the monthly coal imports of the country. In the month of October, the imports have fallen by 3% to 18.3 MnT against 18.8 MnT in Sep’14.
SteelMint learned that out of the total monthly imports, about 15.4 MnT was Thermal coal, 2.7 MnT was Coking and 0.24 MnT was Coke & Anthracite collectively.
Top Exporting Countries
Indonesia, Australia & South Africa were the major suppliers of coal at the end of month. Indonesia remains to be the top exporter of Non-coking coal and supplied about 12.3 MnT; up by 3% against Sep’14. Australia and South Africa had supplied about 3.3 MnT and 0.53 MnT of coal respectively. In October, India has imported about 0.15 MnT of Met Coke from China.
Major Discharging Ports
About 70% of coal has been imported on major ports of the country. Mundra has imported maximum quantity i.e. about 3.22 MnT followed by Dahej and Krishnapatnam, which have imported about 1.4 MnT and 1.3 MnT respectively.
|
Port |
Oct’14 |
Sep’14 |
Change |
|
Mundra |
3.22 |
3.10 |
3.8% |
|
Dahej |
1.43 |
0.93 |
53.1% |
|
Krishnapatnam |
1.29 |
1.54 |
-15.7% |
|
Paradip |
1.29 |
1.62 |
-20.4% |
|
Vizag |
1.12 |
1.28 |
-12.2% |
|
Dhamra |
1.07 |
1.11 |
-3.8% |
|
Ennore |
0.98 |
1.04 |
-5.7% |
|
Mormugao |
0.84 |
0.58 |
45.6% |
|
Kandla |
0.75 |
0.58 |
30.1% |
|
Haldia |
0.73 |
0.59 |
23.1% |
|
Tuticorin |
0.66 |
0.76 |
-13.6% |
|
Gangavaram |
0.63 |
1.53 |
-58.6% |
|
Others |
4.31 |
4.19 |
2.9% |
|
Total |
18.33 |
18.85 |
-3% |
In line with rise in imports since few years, country’s total import crossed 125 MnT during the consecutive 7 months of FY15 and imported about 111 MnT of coal in H1 FY15. While, few market analysts forecasted that total imports may reach to about 200 MnT in FY15.
In India, about 80% of the total imports cater the needs of power generation and its share is growing at a constant level despite of local shortage and constantly increasing domestic coal prices. On the other hand, power producers are facing difficulties to run their plants with full capacity as government has reduced the coal quantity in the e-auction.
However, captive power producers are unable to buy the desired quantity of coal because volume offered by the CIL is low with high prices. Post cancellation of coal blocks, India’s coal import is expected to increase in upcoming months.
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