Indian Coal Demand remain Distressed for 18 MnT

India’s total Coal import upsurges to 22.1% Y-o-Y and imported around 181.7 MnT of Coal in FY14 as per the SteelMint’s exclusive research with covering of 30 Indian ports.

Majorly, the Non-coking Coal imports jumped by 26% to 137.3 MnT. The increase in imports was primarily because of rebelling demand from power generation companies despite of dearth of domestic Coal availability which is encouraging Coal imports.

Almost 82.8% (113.7 MnT) Non-coking Coal has imported from major thermal grade Coal supplying country Indonesia. Whereas, South African imports accounted 12.7% to 17.4 MnT. And, the rest imported from different countries like Australia, USA, Chile and others.

Coking Coal imports of India also increased by 10.3% from last year and imported 39.5 MnT during FY14. It is noted that steel plants have increased their capacity utilization which resulted in growth of total crude steel production by around 4%. Traditionally, India has imported around 80% to 31.6 MnT Coking Coal from Australia and around 7% to 2.7 MnT from USA.

Other than Coking & Non-coking Coal, India has imported around 4.2 MnT (2.34% ) of Metcoke and 0.7 MnT (0.4%) of Anthracite during FY14.

Indian total Coal demand was estimated around 769.7 MnT during the beginning of FY14 by the ministry. However, it is noted that Indian state owned company Coal India and SCCL have produced and dispatched around 513 MnT & 519 MnT respectively. Captive and others Coal production data yet to come (last year was 57.2 MnT) but assuming no growth in its production, India’s total Coal consumption stands at 751.9 MnT (estimated) during FY14. And, so India’s total around 18 MnT of Coal demand remain unsupplied.