Coal India Fuel Supply Stands At 575 mn Tonnes So Far This Fiscal

State-owned CIL has supplied 575 million tonnes (MT) of coal so far this fiscal, surpassing the total dispatch of dry fuel in 2020-21.

The company had dispatched 574.5 MT of coal in FY21, Coal India Ltd (CIL) said in a statement. "With almost a month-and-a-half remaining before FY22 draws to an end, CIL as of February 16 has already raced ahead of the total coal despatch of FY21," it said. Till February 16 of the current fiscal, CIL's despatch to power plants of the country was up at 468.4 MT compared to 381 MT of corresponding period last year, posting 23 per cent growth.

The 9.4 per cent growth in power generation till December FY22 was the highest in a decade on the back of a strong post-Covid economic revival. Whereas, coal imports are down to a nine-year low due to a sharp increase in international coal prices. This put the onus on CIL to step in with increased supplies to ensure uninterrupted power generation which it did.

Amid wild fluctuations, the total coal-based power generation went up sharply to around 11.2 per cent in FY22 till January, against comparable period last year, after a decline during previous two years. To handle such volatility in demand is difficult for a mining company but CIL managed to do so with increased volume supplies, the company said.

CIL has ensured higher availability of coal from its end at a time when the domestic coal-based generation has spiked up by 17 per cent till January FY22, it added. As of February 3, nearly two months before the current fiscal's closing, CIL despatched 446.5 MT of coal to the power sector, exceeding the total quantity that it supplied to the utilities during entire FY21, which was 445 MT.

CIL aims to scale up its supplies to the regulated power sector to 548 MT ending 2021-22 as per the projection of central electricity authority. This would mean a whopping 103 MT volume jump compared to the power sector’s despatch of 445 MT in FY21.

CIL's average despatch to non-power sector is 3.32 lakh tonnes per day so far in the current fiscal which is the normal average. With sufficient coal availability and production looking up, meeting the average despatch of the non-regulated sector
will not be an issue. CIL's current coal production is at 2.3 MT/day and expected to scale up to 2.6 MTs/day and above in the high yielding month of March.