Coal stock at power plants rises to a comfortable 30 MT

Coal inventories at power plants rose to about 30 million tons last month, state-owned Coal India said last week, allaying fears of fuel shortages during the monsoon season.

The government has made every effort to build coal stocks to prevent the power cuts from reoccurring in the summer of this year.

“The coal stock in power plants is close to 30 tons, including imported coal, ending August 22 (to 29). This is significantly higher than 12.8 MTs as of August '21, when the stock plummeted by 11.2 MTs in a month,' Coal India Ltd (CIL) said in a statement. Improved fuel supply from CIL helped stabilize supplies at power plants. “The closing stock for August '22 is a six-year high, except in 2020, when the pandemic slowdown saw the stock at 37.7 tons,” it said.

With a dry fuel supply of 31 tons at CIL's mines, about 30 tons at power stations and just over 10 tons at CIL's sidings, freight sheds, private laundries, ports and factories, there is ample availability of coal in the system, said CIL.

In addition, the supply of coal to the electricity sector also increased to 243.3 million tons in the first five months of the current financial year.

Coal production by CIL in the April-August period also increased 21 percent to 253.3 tons, up from 209.2 tons in the same period a year ago.