A coal supply crisis is brewing in India for the second consecutive year with Coal India Ltd. restricting deliveries to industrial consumers to prioritise power plants. The state-owned miner limited daily supplies to non-power sector users to 275,000 tons, according to an internal letter seen by Bloomberg. That is about 17 per cent lower than recent average daily volumes.
Coal stockpiles at power plants fell Sunday to about 25.2 million tons – short of the coal ministry’s 45 million ton target. Coal-fired plants generate over half of all electricity in India; January 31 data pegs the figure at 51.6 per cent.
And with heatwaves already settling in across large swathes of India, demand for electricity is expected to soar, adding pressure on power generators.
