Coal news and updates

Extended rain affected despatches in October: CIL

November 5: Coal India Ltd (CIL) could not supply the expected quantity of coal in October because of severe rain in most of the mining areas during the month, a senior official from the company told ICMW.

"There was severe rain throughout the month of October in most of the mining areas and these affected despatches. In addition, despatches were severely affected at MCL and SECL areas due to Cyclone Phailin," CIL's Director (Technical) N Kumar told ICMW.

"The rain started at the beginning of October and continued right till October 28," he said.

CIL had a target to despatch 41.55 million tons (mt) coal in October, but ended with a actual despatches of only 35.51 mt of coal, which made it short of target by 15%. In October 2012, the company's despatches stood at 39.10 mt.

"We had been registering a growth of 4.5% in despatches till September, but this fell to 2.6% due to lower despatches in October," Kumar said.

He, however, expressed confidence that the company is gearing up to increase despatches in the balance months of 2013-14 in order to achieve the target of 492.00 mt for the year.

"Our despatches and production traditionally go up in the second half of any financial year. But the first month of the second half of this year had been bad and we have to work with renewed vigour to ensure that the despatch target for the year is achieved. We are confident of achieving the target," Kumar added.