Cyclone Phethai ravages December coal production and supply, says CIL

New Delhi: With Cyclone Phethai making landfall in the West coast of the Bay of Bengal, it seems to have an effect on the coal production and supply in this month. The affected states share a large number of coal mines and therefore, the largest coal-producing company Coal India declared a drop in coal production of 0.38MT/day.

The Maharatna PSU mentioned, "The IMD rainfall data of December 18, 2018, in respect of aforesaid coal-bearing States reflects departure to the tune of 10000 per cent from normal rainfall. Owing to this abnormal and unexpected rainfall, mining and despatch of coal have suffered badly in all the subsidiaries of CIL."

Adding to the coal production, there is also a drop of 0.5 MT/day in the coal supply. "Coal production of CIL has dropped from 1.58MT/day to 1.20MT/day. The total coal despatch has dropped from 1.8 MT/day to 1.30MT/day," CIL mentioned on Wednesday.

Even the coal supply to the power sector has badly suffered and dropped of 0.34MT/day. The company contributes to around 82 per cent of the coal production in India. It operates through 81 mining areas in eight states. In fact, the Overburden Removal has also fallen from the level of 3.7M Cu.M/day to 1.77 M Cu.M/day. However, the government assured that there will be no possibility of power loss and it has enough coal stock and CIL and its subsidiaries have put in all their resources to restore the normalcy.

Meanwhile, the Tropical Cyclone Phethai, which weakened into a depression on Monday night, has further weakened into a low-pressure area on Tuesday morning. The Met Department has withdrawn all the warnings of very heavy rainfall, except for the northeastern states. According to the IMD report, the cyclone brought heavy rainfall at a few places over north coastal Andhra Pradesh and at isolated places over Odisha,Jharkhand and West Bengal on Monday and Tuesday.