Coal stock at power plants rises to a comfortable 30 MT

Coal stocks at power generating plants rose to about 30 million tonnes last month, state-run Coal India said last week, dispelling fears of a shortage of the fuel during the monsoon season. The government has been making all efforts to build up coal stocks to avoid the reoccurrence of power outages seen during the summer this year. “Coal stock at power plants is close to 30 MT, including imported coal, ending August 22 (till 29th). This is substantially higher than 12.8 MTs of August '21 when the stock plummeted by 11.2 MTs in a month,” Coal India Ltd (CIL) said in a statement. Enhanced supply of fuel from CIL helped the stock stabilise at power plants. “Closing stock for the month of August '22 is a six-year high barring 2020, when the pandemic-fuelled slowdown saw the stock at 37.7 MT,” it said. With a stock of dry fuel of 31 MT at CIL's pitheads, around 30 MT stock at power plants, and a little over 10 MT at CIL’s sidings, goods sheds, private washeries, ports, captive plants, there is sufficient availability of coal in the system, CIL said. Besides, the supply of coal to the power sector also rose to 243.3 million tonnes in the first five months of the current financial year. Coal production by CIL during April-August period also increased by 21 per cent to 253.3 MT, over 209.2 MT in the year-ago period. See also: Rajasthan introduces amnesty scheme for minersAdani Enterprises establishes two wholly-owned coal mining subsidiaries