Coal imports fall on account of availability of surplus coal

The Dollar Business Bureau

Coal imports have fallen in the last fiscal of 2015-16 compared to a year earlier, due to increased output by Coal India Ltd (CIL). The imports have declined to 199.88 Mte in 2015-16 from 217.78 Mte in 2014-15.

“On account of increased production by CIL in 2015-16, coal imports have fallen from 217.78 Mte in 2014-15 to 199.88 Mte in 2015-16," informed Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy and Mines Minister Piyush Goyal, in written reply to Lok Sabha on Thursday.

“In order to meet the domestic demand of coal and to make the country self-sufficient in the production of coal, the government is focusing on enhancing the production of coal locally from indigenous sources that includes efforts to speed up clearances for environment and forest, land acquisition and combined efforts with railways for coal movement,” he said.

The minister further informed that CIL has prepared a roadmap to augment the coal production to one billion tonnes by FY 2019-20. It includes increasing the capacity from new projects, using mass production technologies and identifying present on-going projects with potential for growth.

In line with the Presidential directive issued to CIL and under the new Fuel Supply Agreement (FSA) provision, power utility sector consumers have been given the option to choose for supply of a part of Annual Contracted Quantity (ACQ) from the coal imported through CIL. However, no coal company or thermal power plant has approached the CIL for supplying imported coal for FY 2016-17.

As coal comes under the Open General License (OGL) items, it can also be directly imported by the consumers.

According to the initial estimates, the demand for coal is expected to be 884.87 MT in 2016-17 against which the plan to supply from indigenous sources 724.71 MT including 598.61 MT from CIL, 58 MT from Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) and 68.10 MT from other sources including captive blocks. This leaves a demand-supply gap of 160.16 MT which is to be met via imports by the consuming sectors.