Coal India records 10% June output growth

Coal production, by Coal India Limited (CIL), for the month of June 2016 at 42.72 Million Tonnes (mt) grew by 10% compared to same month last year, while the growth in coal off-take for the month registered 6.9% at 44.96 mt. CIL as a whole produced 125.65 mt of coal during April-June 2016, compared to 121.35 mt during same quarter 2015 - an increase of 4.30 mt clocking a growth of 3.5%. 

High coal stock inventory at coal fired power utilities as well as pitheads of Coal India restrained the company to go for higher production during the months of April and May.  Coal off-take quarter ending June 2016 has been 133.19 mt against 129.39 mt on a like to like comparison. Increase in coal off-take in absolute terms has been 3.80 mt evincing a growth of 2.9%. 

Sluggish demand from power utilities was a constraining factor which resulted in muted off-take. Coal fired thermal power stations continue to be comfortable with a coal stock of 30.51 MTs ending June 2016which is 22 days stock with no power station in critical or supercritical condition. 

Over Burden Removal, an important performance criterion in exposing coal seam for future mining, registered a growth of 13.3%for the quarter ending June 2016.With coal ready for mining on the shelf, CIL would be able to raise the production once the demand for coal picks up. The entire machinery can be deployed to extract coal to match the demand. Average rake loading per day during April-June 2016 registered a growth of 4.7%. Rake loading by Coal India went up to 216.1 rakes per day during Q1 of 2016 against 206.4 rakes per day, same period last year. 

Earlier, with quality determination of fossil fuel posing as a challenge, the Centre has decided to allow Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research (CIMFR) to carry out sampling and analysis at unloading end. The government had earlier termed the quality of coal as "an area of concern". "Ministry of Power... has recommended that Third Party Sampling at unloading end also may be carried out by CIMFR only... it has been further decided to permit CIMFR, for undertaking of sampling and analysis of coal at unloading/ receipt end by the thermal power plants," an official said.

Recently, Coal Ministry has nominated CSIR-CIMFR to take up the job of coal quality monitoring at national level for the entire power sector to ascertain the coal quality. A tripartite MoU will be signed among CSIR-CIMFR, NTPC and Coal India tomorrow in the presence of Union Minister for Science and Technology & Earth Science Harsh Vardhan and Coal and Power Minister Piyush Goyal, another 

official said.