Power minister urge power companies to procure imported coal

Friday, 11 Nov 2011

Ministry of Power has asked power utilities across the country to procure imported coal as per given targets in view of the increasing shortage of coal from domestic sources and directed Coal India to arrange coal supply to newly commissioned units.

As per CEA report of November 7 there are 38 thermal plants in country which have coal stock at super critical level implying the coal stock is for less than 4 days. 4 NTPC plants have no coal stock and these are Singrauli, Mejia, Koradama and Durgapur.

Haryana Rajasthan Uttar Pardesh, Andhra Pardesh, NTPC and other utilities have been asked to expedite placement of orders for import of the entire quantity of coal as per their assigned targets. Import of coal is not an easy job in itself moreover pricing of coal is also an important parameter. The costly coal imports lead to higher generation cost and utilities are not able to recover the additional investments made.

NTPC is going for direct coal import to tide over the critical coal stocks at a number of its thermal plants. Gujarat had to back down thermal generation to the extent of 15% due to the high cost of imported coal.

The acute coal shortages and poor quality of coal supplied to thermal stations was also reviewed in the meeting .It may be mentioned that 65% of the country's total power generation is met by thermal generation and of which 85% is coal based generation.

In Haryana Panipat and khedar have coal stock of 2 days and one day respectively. Moreover both plants normally complain about poor coal quality and high transit losses. The oil consumption at the plants has increased due to poor coal quality.

Ministry of Power has sought month wise data from utilities regarding gross calorific value of the coal received at power stations, delivered price along with transportation cost and information with regard to imported coal.

The power utilities are importing substantial amounts of coal to meet their requirements and many have failed to meet their annual targets on account of rising coal costs.

(sourced from Punjabnewsline)