Western Coalfields Ltd (WCL), the mining arm of CIL operating in Maharashtra, has registered sale of 101,960 t coal in its recent spot auction concluded on 3 Sep ’20, wherein 350,000 t was offered.
The allocated quantity dipped 46% m-o-m from 187,700 t in previous month’s auction, but had recorded a marginal uptick in terms of price realization, assessed at INR 2418.54/t as against INR 2389.36/t in Aug ’20.
Also, the price realization this term was assessed 9% higher than the notified price; the same was measured at 8% in the previous auction, which reflects a sluggish recovery in demand.
Key findings:
(a) No bid was recorded for bulk of 80,000 t coal offered through rail mode of sale from Chargaon siding, and was the only colliery which went unsold in the auction. Interestingly, the same lot had failed to incite bidding in previous auction as well.
(b) Better response was seen for raw coal grades (G6, G8, G9 and G10) than the mixed grades. Incidentally, 38% of the sold volume comprising of mixed grades were rather booked at the reserve price. (Detailed colliery-wise result can be seen here).
(c) Highest bid price of INR 3723.55/t was received for G6 grade of coal from Tawa II colliery, which gained premium of INR 809/t against the reserve price.
In contrast, superior premiums were noted for lower GCV coal G8 and G10 offered from Silewara and Mohan Incline collieries respectively, which received bids in excess of INR 1000/t over the reserve price.
WCL geared-up to raise coal supplies:
With expected substantial increase in demand, WCL has taken pro-active steps to raise additional coal crushing, transporting & loading facility for increasing coal dispatch through Rail to a level of 50 rakes per day from Jan ’21, under the “Mission 100 Days” program.
At present, company’s coal dispatch via rail mode has averaged 19 rakes per day due to less coal demand, which was recorded at 23 rakes per day in FY ’20.
Recently, additional coal was offered to power consumers of Central, West & South India at cheaper landed price. Whereas, to meet the requirement of non-power consumers, a second round of spot auction for sale of 337,000 t coal would be carried out on 17 Sep ’20.
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