Team News Riveting
Nagpur, September 3
The power generation companies, reeling under raw material and cost crises, could heave a sigh of relief as the Western Coalfields Limited (WCL), an arm of Coal India Limited (CIL), has offered cheaper coal.
The company had offered substantial additional quantities of coal to different power generation companies of central, west and south India at a cheaper landed price. This will not only help power generation companies to minimise the cost to reduce power tariff but will also be a factor to cut down import of thermal coal in the interest of the nation.
With the advantage of location and phenomenal growth in production, WCL has offered 20-25 Million Tonnes (MT) of coal to State power generation companies, NTPC and other Independent Power Producers (IPPs) by swapping their linkage from other Coal Companies. This will be in addition to their existing linkage quantity with WCL.
In a series of detailed discussions during the last two days with WCL and State power generation companies of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat followed by NTPC and IPPs, all parameters of existing linkage and future swapping have been discussed along with financial benefit to the power generation companies.
Efforts will be made to complete the swapping procedure at the earliest so that WCL may start dispatching the additional quantity by October. The additional quantity offered for swapping ranges from 3-6 MT to different generation companies depending on their requirement. The quantity will further increase in future subject to availability of more surplus coal.
Coal production in WCL went down to a level of 39 MT during 2013-14. Power Consumers had no option, but to take coal from other Subsidiaries of CIL including SECL, MCL and also from SCCL. Due to larger distance, consumers had to pay more on Railway freight making the landed price of coal higher.
However, WCL opened 20 projects in the last 6 years which contributed 36 MT of production during 2019-20. WCL produced about 58 MT of coal during 2019-20 even after losing 22 MT of production during the last 6 years due to exhaustion of reserves.
The company has now planned to open 20 new projects to take the production level to 75 MT by 2023-24 and 100 MT Tonnes by 2026-27. With substantial growth in coal production, WCL has now sufficient coal to offer to its nearby consumers at a cheaper landed price.
