Kolkata: Coal India’s (CIL) total coal allocation under its four e-auction windows logged a robust 65% rise during the first half of the ongoing fiscal over last years same period. Last year’s coal import trend revealed that 40% of coal imports were by traders. According to officials, CIL decided to give more thrust in auction sales which resulted in higher volumes. This is also in line with government’s push on ‘Atma Nirbhar’ in the energy sector.
CIL booked 41.4 Million Tonne (MTs) raw coal in e-auctions during April-September’20 compared to 25.1 MTs booked in the corresponding period last fiscal. The increase in volume terms was 16.3 MTs. With the industrial and commercial activity reviving post unlock, CIL is hopeful that the demand sustains and the sales would boost soon. With no dearth of coal the company is confident of meeting the increased demand.
“Even with the pandemic slowdown CIL could net 10% average premium over notified value in the first six months of the current fiscal compared to 48% of same period year, but the aim was to increase volume supplies” said a senior official of the company.
“We anticipated the liquidity crunch that covid would bring to our customers and brought down the reserve price close to zero to help them lift more coal during the lockdown phase,” he added.
In two tranches of three months each, CIL kept down its reserve price beginning April till September.
