Team News Riveting
Kolkata, January 6
State-run Coal India Limited (CIL) is optimistic of closing the current fiscal with auction bookings of 120 Million Tonnes (MTs) following the buoyancy in its e-auction sales.
It would be the highest ever since coal sales began under the auction hammer.
“Auction sales have surpassed our previous estimates and we feel sure of allocating 120 MTs of coal by the end of the current fiscal” a senior official of the company said.
CIL’s concentrated efforts to book increased volumes of coal under e-auction to bolster sales revenue, especially in view of the narrowed margins in add-ons during COVID pandemic period, paid off with the company scoring a strong 76.2 per cent growth during April-December’ 20.
The PSU coal miner booked 81.4 MTs of coal under five auction windows progressive upto December 20 displaying a robust 35.2 MTs volume expansion compared to 46.2 MTs it booked in the same period a year ago. Beginning October’20 of the current FY CIL introduced a special spot auction for coal importers, under which it had already booked 7.3 MTs in three months.
Apart from increased volume bookings, premium over notified price has been gaining steadily since October with CIL as whole netting a 15 per cent premium during April-December 20. Among the subsidiaries, Eastern Coalfields Limited clocked the highest 40 per cent increase over the notified prices with Central Coalfields Limited and Bharat Coking Coal Limited registering 23 per cent and 22 per cent respectively.
“We have identified specific mines in ECL, BCCL, CCL and SECL from where the response has been positive in e-auction and there is potential for further increase” the official added.
Non-Power Sector consumers, under an exclusive auction window, booked 19.8 MTs during the first nine months of the ongoing fiscal posting more than a three-fold increase against 6.8 MTs the sector booked on a year-on-year comparison.Absolute increase is 13 MTs.
For December’20 CIL allocated 13.1 MTs of coal surging ahead with 72 per cent growth compared to 7.6 MTs of December 19. Premium earned over the notified price was 25 per cent.
Notably, current year’s December saw a significant increase in bookings from the power sector under special forward auction at 5.1 MTs compared to 0.5 MTs the same month year ago, fetching a premium of 12 per cent.
Even if CIL books December volume of 13.1 MTs per month for the remaining three months of the fiscal, it would still comfortably coast to the highest ever e-auction sales of 120 MTs.
