Eastern Coalfields Ltd (ECL) has scheduled a spot coal auction on 22 December, 2022. The total quantity offered is 250,000 t entirely of G4 grade.
Meanwhile, it is the miner’s second auction this month, with another auction for 128,800 t of non-coking coal scheduled for 19 December.
New auction scheme
The highlight of the latest auction by ECL is that this was the first auction to be conducted under the “CIL auction scheme 2022”.
As per the new scheme, instead of coal offerings from individual mines or collieries, the coal companies would now float quantities for auction as a cluster of mines or collieries.
Notably, in the auction offerings from 13 mines are clubbed into 4 clusters.
Bankola C is the one of the 4 clusters
In addition, the mines are donated as loading points for a cluster, from where coal will be delivered. The capacity of each loading point is indicated separately, along with the mode of supply.
The new scheme will conduct auction in a two-stage bidding process.
Bidding process
In the first stage, the bidders are required to place bids against each cluster. For example, the Bankola C cluster has three mines, POCP II, Kumardihi B UG, Nakrakonda OC.
The bidder can bid for Bankola C cluster as a whole for the total offering of 56,500 t, instead of bidding for coal from individual mines.
Thereafter, bid seniority would be decided on merit order of bid prices.
Coal allocation
In the second stage, the successful bidder would be provided a window of six hours to decide upon the choice of mode along with order of preference for the desired loading point.
Finally, the allocation of mode and loading point would be made as per bid seniority in contrast to the previous auction scheme where coal was allocated directly from a specific mine after successful bidding.
Outlook
It is expected that the new auction scheme will promote competitive bidding amongst the participant for preferential loading points.
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