NEW DELHI: For the first time in its history, Coal India Limited (CIL) will export coal to other countries, coal secretary, Anil Swarup tweeted on Tuesday.
“Consequent to record production of coal by Coal India Limited, it is now exploring avenues to export coal,” Swarup wrote on the micro-blogging site.
The exports will be sourced from CIL’s coal stockpile of 55 million tonne. “CIL has never commercially exported coal. We are in talks with Bangladesh to explore the opportunity for a contract” said a source in CIL.
The last two years have been turnaround years for CIL. In 2015-16, CIL recorded a production growth of 9% that is higher than the combined incremental growth for the previous five years. Apart from cr editing CI L’ s top management, Swarup said, “Speedy environmental clearances also played apart in this process .”
The government has set a production target of 598 million tonnes for CIL for the current fiscal, which accounts for over 80% of the domestic coal output.
“But with power generating companies having 22 days of coal stock, the procurement has been slow. So we are exploring the export option,” said the source .
Production in June was 10% higher from the same month last year, so to stop stocks are piling up impacting prices.
{{/usCountry}}Production in June was 10% higher from the same month last year, so to stop stocks are piling up impacting prices.
{{/usCountry}}“There is a surplus stock now due to slowing demand which is due to the financial mess of discoms. But the stock position will change as more and more villages of India are electrified while discoms are made financially viable,” said Partha Bhattacharya, former chairman of CIL.