Coal India's production declines, sales grow in April

KOLKATA: Coal India has not only missed its production target by 12% during the first month of the current fiscal, it has also witnessed a 4.8% fall over the previous corresponding period. On the sales front, the company managed a 6.1% growth although it missed targets for the month by some 9%.

Bharat Coking Coal, a subsidiary, registered a large 25% fall in production and a 10.8% fall in sales volumes. Central Coalfields saw a 14% fall against the previous corresponding period while sales grew 33% during the same period.

During 2016-17, Coal India was offered a production growth target of 11%. It ended up achieving 2.5% growth mainly due to less than anticipated power demand growth.

Target for 2017-18 has been pegged at 660.7 million tonnes and it targeted production of 908.10 million tonnes in 2019-20 requires a compound annual growth rate of 12.98%, with respect to 2014-15 production figures.

Nevertheless, during 2017-18, the Central Electricity Authority has pegged a near 4.5% growth in power generation. Which is likely to require less coal than the target production figure of Coal India for the year.