India's Thermal Power Stations See 54 Million-Ton Coal Shortfall

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Written by Richard Finlayson, Senior International Editor for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The demand for coal required to fire India's thermal power stations is projected to rise 14% to 567 million tons in the current 2014-15 financial year. Coal is used to fire about 59% of the country's installed generation capacity.

Plants designed to use domestic coal may require 527 million tons, and those using imported coal will need an estimated 40 million tons, according to the latest figures from the Central Electricity Authority (CEA). The total coal tonnage available from domestic sources is estimated at 473 million tons, leaving a shortfall of 54 million tons.

In the 2013-14 financial year, India consumed 498.3 million tons of coal against a target of 522 million tons, according to provisional figures from the CEA.

State-run Coal India (BSE:533278) (Kolkata) is expected to produce 405 million tons, followed by state-owned Singareni Collieries Limited (Khamman), with a supply of 35 million tons. Captive coal mines allotted to the power sector are expected to produce 33 million tons.

The government has set a power generation target of 1.02 trillion units of electricity for this financial year. The CEA estimates 859 billion units will be generated by thermal power projects, of which 784 billion units will come from coal-based plants and the remaining 75 billion from fuels such as lignite, naphtha, diesel and natural gas.

The government hopes to achieve generation of 252 billion units in the April-June period, while the target for each of the subsequent quarters is 257 billion units.

Thermal power's contribution in the previous financial year was 792 billion units.

For related information, see April 30, 2014, article - India's Installed Generation Capacity Grows to 243 Gigawatts.

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