COAL MINISTER REVIEWS PRODUCTION AND DISPATCH PERFORMANCE OF COAL COMPANIES

The Minister of State for Coal, Shri Santosh Bagrodia, on August 12 reviewed the production and dispatch performance of Coal Companies, especially that to power sector. The Secretary Coal, Shri H. C. Gupta, senior officials of the Ministry and the CMDs of the Coal Companies were present on the occasion. This performance review was primarily aimed at taking stock of present production trends and various initiatives and strategies initiated by Coal Companies to meet the ever-growing demand for coal, both in the short term and long term. The requirements of the power sector also came up for review along with the measures introduced to tone up dispatches to other important sectors like cement and sponge iron.

Coal is being supplied to regulated power utilities, whose present installed capacity is about 68,950 MW. The overall supply to power sector from Coal India Ltd has shown a growth of 3.4% during April-July, 2008 over the same period last year. Overall, both Coal India Limited and Singareni Collieries Company Limited have achieved 98.7% of AAP dispatch targets to power sector utilities. In fact, in the case of National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) plants, which are operating at relatively high Plant Load Factor (PLF), CIL has achieved 106% of dispatch target upto July 2008. Thus, despite severe constraints in some of the Coal Companies on account of unprecedented rains, frequent law & order problems, transport bottlenecks etc. - there has been a 6.4% growth in coal production in CIL during April-July, 2008 as compared to the same period last year. Moreover, the Coal Companies are also carrying vendible coal stock of about 36 Million Tonnes even after liquidating 11.5 Million Tonnes of stocks in the last 4 months.

During the review, it was also observed that there has been a coal based thermal capacity addition of about 800 MW during April-July, 2008. As per the report of CEA, while there has been overall increase of 2.5% in generation during April-July, 2008, the coal-based generation has shown a growth of 5% over corresponding period of last year. Moreover, no generation loss has been reported in the monthly Energy Generation Report for the month of July 2008 on account of shortage of coal. The Coal Companies have sufficient pithead stocks to meet the “normative requirement” of the power plants provided, issues relating to infrastructural constraints, wherever they exist, availability of appropriate evacuation arrangements etc. are sorted out. The power plants would also be required to plan and expedite their imports as per the target for meeting the blending and stock building requirement as envisaged by the Ministry of Power.

CIL is required to supply a planned target of 292.50 Million Tonnes to power utilities in 2008-09, which is around 12 Million Tonnes more than the quantity supplied in 2007-08. During April-July, 2008, CIL has already supplied 3 MT more than same period last year. At this rate, CIL is confident of achieving its target of coal supply to power utilities in 2008-09.

In the month of July, Dispatch of coal has been 8.5 % more than July, 2007. In case of Power Sector it was 11%.

Source: Ministry of Coal, Govt. of India