Coal India Clears Strategy to Meet 660 MT Production Target for FY20

Amid concerns that Coal India Ltd (CIL) may fall short of its 660 million tonne (MT) production target for the current fiscal, the miner has planned to ramp up daily output to meet the goal, officials said. Till December, the miner is expected to produce close to 390 MT of coal and will require another 270 MT in the last quarter of this fiscal to meet the annual production target.

Currently, Coal India produces 1.8 MT per day while the asking rate to achieve the target is 2.9 MT, they said.

Internally, Coal India has planned to raise its production to 3 MT per day at least in February and March next year to inch closer to the target, Coal India officials told media.

According to the provisional data, the miner produced 330.38 MT of coal during April-November in the 2019-20 fiscal, down by 7.8 per cent from 358.30 MT in the year-ago period. Unless the miner increases its daily production to 2.5 MT per day from January to March period, it will struggle to surpass the production figure of the last fiscal, company sources said.

In 2018-19, Coal India produced 606.89 MT while dispatch was at 608.14 MT.

Coal India’s offtake at 363.63 MT during April- November period was down by 7.2 per cent from 392.02 MT supplied in the year-ago period. CIL officials said the coal offtake was at 410 MT till December 27, 2019 as against a target of 467 MT.