Coal shortage forces Nalco to shut two power units

Shortage of railway rakes partly to blame.

Coal shortage has forced Nalco authorities to shut down two out of its seven 120 Mw units at the Captive Power plant here and to import power from Gridco from July 25 to keep its sensitive Smelter plant running.

"We are in a hand to mouth situation and at any time we fear the collapse of the Smelter plant due to power crisis if the coal supply position does not improve ", a top Nalco official here told Business Standard.

In June both NTPC-Kaniha plant and the CPP of Nalco were under the grip of severe coal shortage following short supply from Mahanadi Coalfields. But situation in NTPC is now restored to normal with the intervention of the Centre and state governments.

But in case of Nalco the coal supply situation has worsened after showing a semblance of improvement for some days last month.

For the first time since its inception in 1986 Nalco Smelter plant is running with hand to mouth power supply and there is a sharp drop in power flow from its captive Power plant located at a distance of two KMs away from the Smelter.

Smelter plant needs uninterrupted power supply round the clock and any disruption in power supply can send the plant into coma stage. It will take at least six months to revive the plant operation, sources here said.

To run 715 average pots in the Smelter, Nalco needs minimum 680 Mw of uninterrupted power daily. At present with the two units of CPP shut down due to coal crisis the power output of CPP stands at 600 Mw from five 120 Mw units. So it has been compelled to import 100 Mw power from Gridco to meet the deficiency. In normal time Nalco runs seven 120 Mw units and produces about 840 Mw per day.

Nalco sources said, following the intervention of the state government in June when the company's faced an acute crisis of feed stock, the coal supply from nearby MCL mines had improved with daily drawal of 14000 to 15000 tonne. Besides drawing an average 10000 to 11000 tonne of coal from its linked Bharatpur mine by MGR, Nalco was getting one full rake of coal (3600 tonne) daily by railways for some days.

However, for last fifteen days, the situation has worsened. Sources said, the company is now getting about 9000 tonne of coal as against 14500 tonne linkage. Its stock is record low at 40000 tonne only against 1.2 lakh tonne in April last. The stock will also be finished if the current rate of short supply continues for some days.

MCL authorities admitting short supply said, the production from the Bharatpur mine, linked to Nalco, is down to 6000 tonne daily against the normal of 35000 tonne due to land problems. They said, steps are being taken to bring coal from other mines to augment the supply through MGR system.

The company officials attributed the current crisis to the stoppage of rakes supply by Railway to send coal to Nalco. Meanwhile Nalco CMD, C.R Pradhan has rushed to Delhi to hold talks with the railways and coal ministry to bail out the plant from the current situation.