KOLKATA: Increased fuel supplies to power plants by Coal IndiaNSE 1.93 % may halve imports to 11 million tonnes this year, the power ministry has estimated.
Power utilities that blend high energy coal from overseas market with low grade domestic variety, are being urged to substitute the imported part with high quality coal supplied by Coal India.
In a late evening statement, Coal India said it is urging power generators to buy high grade coal from it's mines instead of sourcing it overseas.
The dry fuel supplier is offering state gencos of Tamil Nadu, a major coal importers, around 4.5 million tonnes of high energy content fuel from Eastern Coalfields Ltd.
Actions are also on way for granting more long term supply contact through auctions. CIL is also making efforts to boost supplies to the power sector to reduce their dependence on imports for meeting increased generation demand.
Projected requirement of ministry of power for domestic coal based power plants for 2019-20 is 651 million tonnes. CIL’s share is 530 million tonnes. With CIL ensuring its share of coal supply at 530 million tonnes, the power ministry estimates import in 2019-20 to come down to around 11 million tonnes in 2019-20 from 21 million tonnes during 2018-19.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com