Coal India said that had power utilities maintained the normative stock of 22 days that the Central Electricity Authority prescribes, they could have averted the low coal stock situation.
“CIL has taken up this on a mission mode. Availability of coal and subsequent supplies will be ramped up. Despatches to coal fired plants from October onward are aimed at 1.5 MTs per day going beyond 1.6 MTs in due course” said Satyendra Nath Tiwary, director (marketing), at Coal India.
The company has ramped up supply to power plants to 1.4 million tonnes for the last three days and said that “normalcy could be expected soon.”
Coal stocks at power stations have depleted with many units reporting critically low average stock. CEA data showed that 112 of the total 135 coal-fuelled power plants had stocks that would not last more than a week. Of these, 70 plants had coal that would last less than three days.
Coal India said that the stocks were at a comfortable level of 28.4 million tonnes at the beginning of the fiscal until and even until July, it was at 24 million tonnes which is in line with the previous five-year average of the same period. But in August, the stock plummeted to by over 11 million ton.
Coal India said that the imported coal-based plants worked at low capacity as global coal and freight prices have gone up. This curtailing their generation and has resulted in a shift in demand towards the domestic coal fired plants.
“The sudden spike in power generation in the second week of August triggered the increased appetite for coal. As a result, coal demand outpaced the supplies leading to depletion of stocks at the power stations,” the statement said.
Coal India said that despite monsoon challenges and non-payment of outstanding dues, it has supplied 243 million tonnes of coal to power utilities during April-September 21 (till 28 September) which is all time high recorded for this period for any year.
