Coal India production up by 7% in Dec 2019 after negative growth spell

Coal India Ltd (CIL), which registerted negative growth in production of the dry fuel for past few months, has posted over 7 per cent growth in December with 58 million tonne output, sources said on Wednesday.

The coal behemoth had produced 54.13 million tonne in corresponding month of 2018.

In the last month, the production was about 8 million tonne higher from 50.2 million tonne prduced in November, the company sources said.

According to provisional data, the miner has produced 388.39 million tonne of coal during April-December period of the current fiscal, down by 5.83 per cent from 412.45 million tonne in the first nine months of the last financial year, CIL sources told PTI.

Coal India aimed at producing 660 million tonne in 2019-20 and missed the target of 457.23 million tonne till December.

The company has not officially announced its latest production figures till the story was filed.

Production was relatively less during April-December period as mining activities by coal producing subsidiaries had been hit during monsoon, sources said.

Coal India dispatched 53.4 million tonne of coal in December 2019 to its customers as against 52.77 million tonne in the same month of previous year.

Coal offtake in the first nine months of the current fiscal (April-December 19) was at 417 million tonne, down from 444.59 million tonne supplied in the same period of 2018.

The fall in offtake was probably due to dip in electricity generation from thermal power plants, CIL sources said.

The miner had already chalked out a strategy to ramp up its production during the January-March quarter of the current fiscal to come close to its annual target.