NEW DELHI: After shrinkage in the last two years, Coal India Limited (CIL) on Friday informed that it produced a whopping 622.6 million tonnes (MT) of coal in this fiscal 2021-22, eclipsing the previous high of 607 MT recorded in 2018-19.
This year, the state-owned CIL produced 26.4 MT more coal, compared to 596.2 MTs in 2020-21. The company’s supply to the power sector soared to a record 540.4 MT with a whopping 95.4 MT volume increase. This represents 21.4% growth compared to 445 MT supplies of FY’21.
Even compared to standard pandemic free FY ‘20 and FY’19, the growth in supplies to the power sector logged 16 % and 10% respectively. The sharp 95.4 MT supply expansion in FY’22 is higher than the collective increase achieved during the previous seven year period. Coal supplies to the power sector rose to 445 MT in 2020-21 from 353.8 MT in 2013-14, up by 91.2 MT.
“CIL has turned out a prolific performance, even as the second wave of COVID during the first quarter of FY, and the extended monsoon threatened CIL’s production and loading operations. Handling volatility of coal demand from the power sector in the second half of the year was another challenge,” said the company in a statement.
The company informed that the annual increment of 87.4 MT total off-take is more than the combined rise of 85.1 MT of the last six years, from 489.4 MT in 2014-15 to 574.5 MT in 2020-21. Its average loading at the highest ever level of 271.2 rakes per day grew by 12.3% compared to the average of 241.4 rakes loaded in FY’21.
This year, CIL has cleared 16 coal mining projects of which 7 are greenfield and 9 expansion projects. Combined, they have a total capacity of nearly 100 MT/Y and incremental capacity of 56.7 MT/Y.