Thermal coal imports soar 18% during Apr-Oct

New Delhi: Thermal coal imports surged 18 per cent at the country's top 12 major ports to 55.90 million tonnes (MT) in the first seven months of the current fiscal amid government efforts to boost domestic output, led by state-owned Coal India Ltd.

These ports had handled 47.23 MT of coal during the April-October period of the last fiscal, 2014-15.

Thermal coal is the mainstay of India's energy programme as 70 per cent of power generation is dependent on the dry fuel, while Coal Minister Piyush Goyal has been emphasising the need to increase the production by state-run Coal India.

Imports of coking coal, used mainly for steel-making, also jumped by 6.31 per cent to 19.38 MT, as per the latest data with the Indian Ports Authority.

The centre-owned ports had handled 18.23 MT of coking coal in April-October period of 2014-15.

Together, these ports handled 75.28 MT coal during the April-October period of the current fiscal as against 65.46 MT in the same period of the previous fiscal.

India is the third-largest producer of coal after China and the US with 299 billion tonnes of resources and 123 billion tonnes of proven reserves, which may last for over 100 years.

India has 12 major ports -- Kandla, Mumbai, JNPT, Marmugao, New Mangalore, Cochin, Chennai, Ennore, V O Chidambarnar, Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Kolkata (including Haldia) -- which handle approximately 61 per cent of the country's total cargo traffic.

Thermal coal is used in power generation and with the world's largest miner Coal India, which accounts for over 80 per cent of the domestic requirement, consistently failing to meet its target as well as demand of the firms, the power plants resort to imports.

Less production coupled with increased demand from power firms is further widening the demand-supply gap in the country, which is likely to widen to 185.5 MT in 2016-17.

Coal India could record barely a 31 MT increase in coal production in four years from 2010 to 2014, but in 2014-15, it recorded an increase of 32 MT.

The company's production rose by 9.15 per cent to 273.91 MT during the April-October quarter this year compared to 250.94 MT in the year-ago period.

For the current fiscal, CIL's production target has been fixed at 550 MT.

CIL missed the production target for 2014-15 by 3 per cent recording an output of 494.23 MT. The company's output target was 507 MT for the fiscal. In 2013-14, the company had clocked production of 462.53 MT against a target of 482 MT.

The Centre has announced plans to boost Coal India's annual production to the level of 1 billion tonnes by 2019 to meet growing fuel demand.

Goyal had recently said that CIL will invest USD 20 billion (over Rs 1.27 lakh crore) to increase production to one billion tonnes over the next five years.