Coal news and updates

Coal stocks at Indian power plants fall to 17.38 mt

October 31: After rising continuously from March-April this year and touching a peak of over 23 million tons (mt) in August, the daily coal stocks at power plants in the country fell by nearly 5.62 mt to stand at 17.38 mt towards the end of October, according to data available from the Central Electricity Authority (CEA).

Incidentally, daily coal stocks at Indian power plants used to hover at 7-8 mt levels till 2012, but had started rising from the beginning of 2013 and touched a peak in August due to higher supplies by coal companies on increased production, better rake availability and consequent lower generation by utilities on low demand from distribution companies.

Industry sources anticipate that a slight improvement in power demand, coupled with low supplies of imported coal to the utilities by traders due to the sharp fluctuation in the Indian rupee against the dollar had prompted the power plants to burn more coal from their stocks, which resulted in a reduction in the overall stock position.

Incidentally, coal stocks at 98 power plants monitored by the CEA stood at 20.15 mt as on September 25 but fell gradually to 19.22 mt on October 7 and to 18.9 mt on October 14, further to 18.19 mt on October 21 and finally to 17.38 mt on October 28.

The stocks of imported coal on October 28 stood at 0.927 mt, at 1.078 mt on October 7, 1.198 mt on October 14 and at 1.124 mt on October 21. The figure stood at 0.961 mt on September 25.

The decline in the overall coal stocks situation led to an increased number of plants facing a critical coal stock situation of less than four days, the data from CEA revealed. The number of plants facing a critical coal stock position of less than seven days stood at 23 on October 28 as compared to 19 plants facing a similar fate on October 7. The same stood at 21 on September 14, at 21 on September 21 and at 13 on September 25.

However, the number of plants facing a super-critical coal stocks position of less than four days increased slightly to 15 as on October 28 as compared to 14 facing that situation on October 21, 13 on October 14, 14 on October 7 and 8 on September 25.