India’s domestic coal rake movement rises 12% m-o-m in Nov’22

India’s domestic coal rake movement in November 2022 rose by 12% m-o-m to 12,535 units. This was due to rise in coal-based power generation and upswing in production and dispatches of domestic coal in November as compared to the previous month.

India’s coal-based power generation has risen by 7.5% m-o-m to 90 billion units (BU). Meanwhile, India’s coal production in November 2022 stood at 75.87 mnt, a m-o-m growth of around 15% while the country’s total coal dispatches rose by 10.5% to 74.3 mnt in November 2022.

Meanwhile, the year-wise domestic coal rake movement remained range-bound, showing a marginal increase of 2%.

Notably, India’s total coal rake movement in November 2022 stood at 15,012 units, a rise of 8% m-o-m while the y-o-y rise was 6%. Each rake carries approximately 3,900 tonnes of coal, which means 58.54 mnt of coal was dispatched by Indian Railways last month.

Fall in imported coal rake movement

Imported coal rake movement has fallen for the fourth consecutive month in November to 2,476 units, a fall of 8% m-o-m. This indicates the country’s dependence on imported coal has reduced with the increase in domestic coal production.

However, imported coal rake movement in November 2022 is 34% higher than in November 2021.

Zone-wise rake movement

• East Central Railway, South East Central Railway, and South Central have grown by double digits compared to a month ago among the key zones handling total coal traffic. However, total coal rake movement decreased marginally from the South East Central Railway and the East Coast Railway.
• All major zones handling domestic coal rake movement have seen an uptake in November 2022 as compared to October 2022.
• East Central Railway Zone traffic saw 400 more rakes of domestic coal in November 2022 compared to October 2022, while South Central Zone experienced the highest percentage-wise increase of 23% in coal rake movement during the same period.
• East Coast Railway handled more than 50% of the imported coal rake movement in November 2022, with a drop of 9% m-o-m.
• Only Western Railway’s imported coal rake movement has increase m-o-m in November 2022.

Outlook

In near term, it is expected that the trend seen in November 2022 would continue, there will be a fall in imported coal rake movement while domestic coal rake movement will increase.