Coal India's supplies to power plants jumps 16% amidst soaring generation; stock climbs ~2%

2 May 2022 , 12:12 PM

Coal India Limited (CIL) posted a 15.6 % growth in its supplies to the power sector in April’22 compared to the same month last year.

Importantly, CIL registered 16% growth in its overburden removal (OBR). The company excavated 132.8 million cubic metres of OBR during the month registering 16% growth. The same was 114.6 M.Cu.M in April’21. OBR is an important performance criterion that removes the topsoil in opencast mining and exposes the coal seam for faster extraction of coal in the future. it also improves the mine geometry and makes mines safer to operate.

With the intense demand for coal continuing unabated driven by an upward spiral in the electricity generation CIL pushed up its supplies to power plants in the country to 49.7 million tonnes (MTs) in April’22. This is 6.7 MTs more supply compared to April’21 when the power sector’s despatch was 43 MTs.

On an average, CIL supplied 1.66 MTs of coal per day to power utilities in April’22 which sped to 1.73 MTs during the last week. The average supply per day is at par with what was programmed by CIL for this sector during the first quarter of FY’23.

To keep up with the increased appetite for coal, CIL accelerated its production to 53.5 MTs, logging a strong 27.6 percent growth. This is 11.6 MTs higher compared to 41.9 MTs in April’21. All the subsidiaries of CIL have registered year-on-year growth.

MCL, SECL, NCL, and WCL have significantly raised their production in April’22. With a higher output, CIL would be aiming to increase its despatches further, especially to power plants in the coming months.

Coal output of April’22 was the highest ever for the month, so far, eclipsing the previous peak of 45.3 MTs achieved in April’19.

Coal India is currently trading at Rs187.50 up by Rs4.4 or 2.4% from its previous closing of Rs183.10 on the BSE. So far, it touched intraday high and low of Rs187.90 and Rs178.85 respectively.