PSU Coal India Ltd energises its April-July output to 155.4 mt

The production goal for April-July was 168 mt, Coal India said in a filing to the BSE on Wednesday.

Production in July was 36.6 mt as against the target of 37.6 mt. The offtake of coal by CIL during April-July stood at 181.6 mt compared to the stipulated 194 mt.

Coal India, which accounts for over 80 per cent of domestic coal production, is eyeing 1 billion tonne output by 2020.

The government had earlier said there were no plans to cut down coal output because of hardening demand.

In October last year, demand started picking up for both coal and power sectors.

Coal India's e-auction of coal sales was up by around 32 per cent to 32.7 million tonne during the first quarter of FY 2017-18.

"The PSU coal mining behemoth has booked 32.7 million tonne of coal through different e-auction schemes during April-June 2017 against 24.8 million tonne in the same quarter in the previous fiscal, an increase of 7.9 million tonne," a CIL official said.

In 2016-17, CIL had booked 113.8 million tonne of coal through e-auction mode.

The coal major was pushing coal in the e-auction mode to improve margin though there had been a gradual decline in the price.

The CIL has proposed that a total of 105 million tonne coal be e-auctioned from July 2017 to March 2018.

Currently, CIL offered coal under different e-auction schemes like spot e-auction, special forward e-auction for power producers, exclusive e-auction for non-power and special spot e-auction.