Coal imports down 19% to 16 million tonnes in May

Coal imports declined by 19.2% to 16.38 million tonnes (MT) last month on the back of sufficient availability of domestic fuel.

Imports in May last year stood at 20.29 million tonnes, according to mjunction services, an online procurement and sales platform jointly floated by Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) and Tata Steel.

According to mjunction services CEO and MD Viresh Oberoi, the import of non-coking coal was lower as most of the domestic coal-based power plants, particularly public sector unit (PSU) power plants, had cut down significantly on their use of imported coal due to ample availability of domestic coal.

As per data available with mjunction, in April, there was a 50% decline in coal imports by domestic coal based power plants which use imported coal for blending purposes, he said.

The coal import by these plants stood at only 2.30 million tonnes in April this year as compared to 4.56 million tonnes imported in the same month of 2015.

However, coal imports by imported coal-based power plants during the month stood at 3.83 MT, up 3%.

Oberoi said there appears to be some slowdown in non-coking coal import by cement plants as well as some of them have switched to pet coke due to comparatively soft trend in prices of pet coke from November last year.

Pet coke imports in April was up 12.79% compared with the corresponding month of previous year, he added.

Helped by a record coal production by the world's largest coal miner Coal India Ltd (CIL), India reduced its import bill of the dry fuel by more than Rs 28,000 crore last fiscal.

"Record coal production by Coal India Ltd (CIL)  leads to a reduction in import by 34.26 million tonnes (MT). Results in a saving of Rs 28,070 crore in foreign exchange during 2015-16," Coal Secretary Anil Swarup had earlier said in a tweet.

The Coal Secretary also tweeted on Twitter on May 31:

Coal India Ltd. has demonstrated how a PSU can bring about a sea change in a couple of years and contribute to national development

— Anil Swarup (@swarup58) May 31, 2016

The government had earlier said India plans to completely stop thermal coal imports in two-three years that would result in annual savings of Rs 40,000 crore.