Coal India increases production to 500 million tonnes in 2014-15

 The Dollar Business Bureau Coal India Limited, (CIL), the government-owned coal mining company, produced around 500 million tonnes of fuel in the last financial year, registering an increase of 6.9% as compared to the previous year. “The increase in production in absolute terms was 31.81 million tonnes which is highest ever incremental increase in a single financial year since the inception of the company,” said Sutirtha Bhattacharya, Chairman of CIL. In the last financial year, the company has achieved 42.5% target of the absolute increase of 74.93 million tonnes recorded during the entire eleventh five-year plan. However, “the challenge is to ramp up our production to match with the targets and sustain it,” Bhattacharya said. During the last four financial years till 2013-14, the absolute increase in coal production was 31.16 MTs, whereas the production increase in volume terms took a quantum leap to 31.81 MTs in 2014-15 alone, Coal India said in its annual performance report. The company achieved 94% of its target in raw coal off-take from its production plant. The total off-take of raw coal during the period was 489.34 MTs, up 3.8% to 17.76 MTs year-on-year. But Bhattacharya said, “Growth in coal off-take ought to have been more.” Explaining the reason, he said wagon availability was not commensurate with the indents of coal companies. The company also improved its capacity in removing overburden in the past one year and expected to add production in future. During 2014-15, CIL removed around 890 million cubic metres of overburden, which was 10% more than that of a year ago. “Over Burden Removal (OBR) is an important performance criterion as it improves the mine geometry and exposes the coal seam for future mining. It also makes mines safer to operate,” Bhattacharya said. Coal supplies to power plants, major consumers of CIL, witnessed 8.6% growth on a year-on-year comparison as per the annual action plan. Dispatch of coal and coal products from CIL to power utilities of the country during 2014-15 surged to 384.18 MTs, up by 30.35 MTs, from that of 353.83 MTs in 2013-14, the report said. CIL contributes to more than 80% of the total coal requirement of all thermal power plants across the country. Increased supply of fuel to the power generation units also indicates improvement in the power sector.      

May 22, 2015 | 7:07 pm IST.