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Informist, Friday, Feb. 28, 2025

 

--Sources: Coal India may miss output target for 8th straight month in Feb

--Sources: Coal India may miss sales target for 11th straight month in Feb

--Sources: Three largest coal mines in Chhattisgarh facing output issues

--Sources: Kusmunda coal mine trailing Apr-Feb production target by 47%

By Avishek Rakshit

 

KOLKATA – Coal India Ltd. is likely to miss its production target for February due to issues at its eastern mines, the eighth straight month that the company will fall short of the output target. It could also miss its sales target for the month, as has been the trend so far this financial year .

 

Sources aware of the development told Informist that in February, Coal India produced 71.4 million tonnes of coal as of Thursday, against the target of 81.7 million tonnes for the month. 

 

"With only a day remaining before February ends, it is not possible to produce over 10 million tonnes of coal...," one of the sources said. As against the planned output of 2.9 million tonnes per day in February, the company produced 2.6 million tonnes, resulting in the backlog. As of Thursday, Coal India could achieve only 90.6% of the production target. 

 

As a result of the company continuing to miss production targets since July, it produced only 692.6 million tonnes of coal as of Thursday, trailing its target for Apr-Feb by 6.5%, one of the sources said. 

 

Only two of its subsidiaries – Northern Coalfields Ltd., and Western Coalfields Ltd. – are ahead of their targets for February, but the major coal producing subsidiaries Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd. and South Eastern Coalfields Ltd. are trailing their targets for the month by 3.4% and 22.4%, respectively. Mahanadi Coalfields was expected to produce 20.6 million tonnes, and South Eastern Coalfields was given a target of 22.7 million tonnes for February. 

 

"The major three mines in the country which are under South Eastern Coalfields are having production-related issues, which is largely contributing to the production loss," one of the sources said.

 

The Gevra opencast mine in Chhattisgarh, the largest in the country, which has a target to produce around 55 million tonnes of coal in Apr-Feb, could produce only over 48 million tonnes, a 12% shortfall. The second-largest mine – Kusmunda, is short of its target of around 46 million tonnes by a massive 46.6%. The third largest mine, the Dipka opencast mine in Chhattisgarh, is trailing its production target of over 35 million tonnes for Apr-Feb by nearly 19%. All these mines are under South Eastern Coalfields. 

 

While Coal India has already scaled down its original production target of 838 million tonnes for 2024-25 (Apr-Mar) to 810 million tonnes, the company produced 692.5 million tonnes as of Thursday. With just over a month remaining before the current financial year ends, the company may have to produce over 3.5 million tonnes per day in March to meet the revised production target, a Herculean task for the coal behemoth. 

 

MISS ON SALES

In the ongoing financial year, Coal India sold over 685 million tonnes as of Thursday, against the offtake target of over 760 millon tonnes, a shortfall of around 10%. For February, the company's sales may fall 10% short of the target of 68.4 million tonnes.

 

"The demand from the power sector is not as much as anticipated, which resulted in sales growing on a yearly basis but missed the targets," one of the sources said.

 

Thermal power plants currently have over 48 million tonnes of coal stocks with them, enough to generate power for 22 days without replenishment. On Jan. 31, power plants had stocks of around 46 million tonnes. 

 

At 1305 IST, shares of Coal India were up 0.6% at INR 365.9 on the National Stock Exchange.  End 
 

IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT

 

Edited by Avishek Dutta

 

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