Coal India sets sights on big auction

Coal India has set its sights to auction 120 million tonnes (mt) of coal by March 2021, the most in a year with the previous high being 114mt recorded in 2016-17.

Coal India officials on Wednesday said the miner has auctioned 81.4mt under five windows till December 2020, higher by 35.2mt compared with 46.2mt sold in the same period a year ago.

Beginning October 2020, Coal India introduced a special spot auction for importers, under which it had already booked 7.3mt in three months.

Premium price

Apart from increased volume bookings, the sales have fetched a premium of 15 per cent in prices during April-December 2020.