Coal India witnesses fall in coal sales during first half of 2016-17

KOLKATA: Coal India’s coal sales during the first half of 2016-17 declined about 1 per cent against the previous corresponding period on the back of adequate coal stacked at power plants and demand growing at a pace less than anticipated.

Production growth for the period was flat although the company achieved 90 per cent of its targets. Despite a marginal fall in sales, it achieved 88 per cent of its sales target for the period.

During the period under review, Coal India managed to produce 230 million tonnes on coal and sold around 249 million tonnes thereby reducing stocks by about by some 19 million tonnes during the same period.

On Sunday Piyush Goyal, minister of state for power, coal, new & renewable energy and mines said that the government to trying to find a way to replace all imported thermal coal usage by domestic coal.

“To this effect I have asked Bhel to find a design to modify plants that were built only to take imported plants thus enabling them to consume domestic coal,” he said on the sidelines of the 115th Annual Session of MCC Chambers of Commerce & Industry in Kolkata.

On Coal India not growing at the pace intended, Goyal said: “This is a temporary demand supply mismatch.”

However, we was hopeful that the country will consume more than the targeted 1 billion tonnes coal that Coal India has been asked to produce by 2020.