Lukewarm Interest for Coal Imports From CIL: Report

Several coal consumers who previously expressed interest in receiving imported coal from Coal India have gradually pulled out, sources said.

"Many of the coal consumers including some power producers who earlier expressed interest to get imported coal through CIL arrangement have decided not to go ahead," Coal India sources told PTI.

"The coal import tender that will be floated by MMTC in a week's time will be of quality less than 'one million tonne' as many consumers have moved out from our arrangement," he said.

According to the fuel supply agreements entered between the coal major and consumers in 2012, CIL proposed to meet 15 per cent of the needs through import on a cost-plus basis to meet 80 per cent of the coal requirement for a power plant.

State-owned trading house MMTC was the sole bidder for the contract for Coal India.

Initially, interest shown by at least 50 consumers totalled around 5 million tonnes (MT) of coal.

Coal India sought expression of interest from agencies to handle coal import on their behalf. The demand then was projected to be 3 MT. But at the time of placing orders, imported coal demand from CIL dipped below 1 MT.

MMTC would be required to fulfil the import commitment within this fiscal, CIL officials said.

Coal India sources said consumers who had opted out from the coal import arrangement could for various reasons but it was not known.