Coal India’s Monthly Offtake Grows At Slowest Pace In Two Years

Coal India Ltd.'s offtake in September grew at the slowest pace in nearly two years due to a high base and monsoon season.

Dispatches of the world's largest miner of the fossil fuel rose less than a percent last month to 43.91 million tonnes—the lowest level since October 2016—according to Bloomberg data. Offtake in the April-September period rose 8.1 percent year-on-year to 290.8 million tonnes.

“The negligible offtake growth in September can be attributed to an adverse base effect and monsoon rains hampering loading, particularly at its subsidiaries,” Nomura said in a note. The output growth, however, recovered since in the latter half of the month, it said.

Offtake fell 1.2 percent and 13.2 percent on a yearly basis for subsidiaries South Eastern Coalfields Ltd. and Central Coalfields Ltd., respectively, due to issues related to availability of rakes and law and order. Bharat Coking Coal Ltd., which is facing siding track issues between Dhanbad and Chandrapur, witnessed a 6.5 percent year-on-year fall in dispatch, according to a report by Daiwa Capital Markets.

This comes when the state-run miner missed its dispatch target of 600 million tonnes in the previous financial year by 3.3 percent due to lower production and availability of rakes. Coal India missed its production target of 600 million tonnes in the financial year ended March 2018 by 5.4 percent.

Coal India's production rose 3.8 percent year-on-year to 40.2 million tonnes in September. The output, in the April-September period, rose 10.6 percent on a yearly basis to 256.5 million tonnes.