Coal India, the Indian coal behemoth, has ended up selling most of the linkages offered to captive power producers. These linkages are critical as they act like long-term assurance for supplies.
CIL had a total offering of 18.86 MT. It managed to sell most of the linkages at the end of an eight-day auction period. The public sector giant sold linkages worth 18.07 MT of annual supplies.
Coal from majority of the sources (mainly mines) was sold at a premium of up to 10 per cent the notified price of fuel. However, CIL failed to get adequate buyers for its sponge iron and cement linkage auctions.
Meanwhile, CIL is gradually trying to move towards meeting its coal production target of 1 billion tonnes. Despite the low demand for the commodity, the company maintained 4 per cent growth in production during the April-July period. However, coal sales or off-take grew by a meagre 2.6 per cent during the same period.
In all, CIL liquidated 12 million pit-head stock during the period. During the same period last year, the company had liquidated 15 MT of stock.
There has been an accretion in pit-head stock, despite a slowdown in production.