• Coal India production increases by 18 percent to 47 MT(million tonnes) in October
  • The upsurge in absolute terms was 7.4 MT

Coal India Limited, an Indian public sector coal mining and refining firm, has reportedly announced the production of 46.8 MT of coal last month, recording a growth of 18.4 percent. The company had produced 39.5 MT of coal in the same month of the prior fiscal year.

The state-owned firm said in the statement that the increase in coal production in absolute terms was 7.4 MT. With its coal production hindered by the COVID-19 pandemic induced slowdown during the first four months of the current fiscal, the company started recording positive growth from August onward on a month-on-month basis. For the first time in the current fiscal, it posted a positive growth of 0.9% in cumulative production till October thus far.

Sources cite that the company produced 282.9 MT of coal during April-October, which was 2.5 MT more than that during a similar period the previous year. Though the positive growth in coal production was nominal, the company could wipe off the negative trend and is looking forward to consolidating the positive growth pattern for the rest of the fiscal, a senior official of CIL said.

Indicating strong demand revival for the dry fuel, the company posted a 25% increase in coal off-take for October at 50.5 MTs. This signifies a volume surge of 10.1 MT compared to 40.4 MT that CIL supplied in the same month in the previous year. All the subsidiaries of CIL also recorded growth in supplies.

Even though the nation’s core industry output contraction narrowed to 0.8% in Sept. 2020, the coal sector recorded 21.2 percent growth compared to the same month of the last year. This growth is the maximum among all the eight core  industries, compared to the corresponding month a year ago,

Besides coal industry, only two other core sectors recorded a positive trend during September. CIL accounts for more than 80% of the domestic coal output.

Source credit - https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/coal-india-production-rises-by-18-to-47-mt-in-october-6048601.html