Aluminium Association of India seeks PMO intervention on coal supply issues

Aluminium Association of India (AAI) on Monday said it has written to the Prime Minister's Office seeking its urgent intervention to ward off the imminent disruption in coal supplies with the state-run coal miner deciding to curtail road and rake coal dispatches to the non-power sector.

The letter has been prompted by a recent adhoc decision by state-run CIL to further curtail road and rake supplies of coal to the non-power sector, without any advance notice.

The domestic coal crisis faced over the past seven months has shown recent signs of abating, at least with respect to the power sector whose coal stocks have improved significantly to 9-10 days' stocks from a low of three-four days in August-September last year, AAI said in a statement.

However, this has been to the detriment of the non-power sector comprising several large industries dependent on coal for power generation, including steel, aluminium, and fertiliser producers.

The coal supplies for non-power sector have now been further curtailed from 3.6 lakh tonnes per day (LTPD) to 2.75 LTPD, which will worsen the demand-supply gap and create a massive deficit for the industry, the association said.

This concerning development comes at a time when coal supplies to the non-power sector have already declined by 12 per cent during September-February period in FY'22, while supplies to power sector increased by 11 per cent, resulting in an enormous backlog of 4800 rakes pending supply to the non-power sector.

The worst impacted by this situation are the captive power plants (CPPs) of the highly power-intensive aluminium industry. Although the prescribed level of coal stocks for the industry is at least 15 days, it is now seeing dangerously low stocks of less than four days.

The aluminium industry needs stable, uninterrupted supplies of power to keep its smelters running.