Coal India's supplies to power plants up by 9.2%

Kolkata, Dec 3: Coal India Ltd (CIL) on Sunday said coal supplies to power utilities increased by 9.2 per cent to 290.59 million tonnes (mt) during April to November period of the current fiscal compared to 266 mt during same period last year. “On the back of higher rake loading, CIL’s coal supplies to power utilities of the country posted a healthy 9.2 per cent growth at 290.59 mt during April-November 2017 continuing the upward spiral. This translates to a robust 24.59 mt increase in absolute terms compared to 266 MTs during April-November 2016,” the miner said in a statement.

For November only, the growth in coal supplies to thermal power stations of the country was up by around 9 per cent at 40.92 mt as against 37.56 mt supplied during year-ago month. The increased supplies saw the coal stocks at power stations going up by over two mt to around 10 mt at the end of November 2017 compared to closing stock of 7.9 mt in October 2017. The miner said it was gearing up to step up the supplies even further to pull the power stations out of the critical situation.

Average rake loading per day to the power sector recorded a growth of 6.8 per cent during the eight-month period of current fiscal. “Coal India as a whole loaded 191.7 rakes per day to coal based generating units of the country during April-November 2017 compared to 179.5 rakes same period last year. The increase in absolute terms is 12.2 rakes per day. November 2017 witnessed invigorated loading by the miner with the average loading for the month raising to 217.3 rakes compared to 199.7 rakes, same month last year with a strong growth of 8.8 per cent,” CIL said in a statement.

Coal supplies to non-power sector have been gradually increasing with stabilisation of supplies to power houses, it said. “Rake loading per day to the entire consumer base of CIL grew by 4.1 per cent for the eight-month period of the fiscal ending November 2017, averaging 218.3 rakes during the period against 209.8 rakes on a year-on-year comparison,” it said adding that the overall rake loading peaked to 261 rakes on November 29 with month’s average settling down at 241.1 rakes evincing a growth of 2.5 per cent compared to 235.2 rakes during November 2016. (IANS)