India’s coal import goes up by 17.6% y-o-y in April-Dec period

New Delhi: Coal import in the country went up by 17.6 percent in April-December period to settle at 52.48 million tonnes, data sourced from the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) showed. The figure was at 44.64 MT in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal year. The data also showed that the surge in coal import was due higher consumption by power generation companies like Adani Power and state-owned power giant NTPC, among others, in the nine-month period.

Coal import by NTPC rises six-fold

The coal imports by NTPC Limited went up six times to 1.9 million tonnes in first nine months of this fiscal. In the corresponding of the previous year, NTPC had imported 0.32 million tonnes. The imports by Tamil Nadu state firm TANGEDCO also increased by 74.8 percent to 3.69 million tonnes in the first nine months as compared to 2.11 million tonnes. Adani Power's Mundra plant alone imported 12.83 million tonnes of coal during the April-December period of this fiscal. This was 45.7 percent over 8.81 million tonnes in the same period a year ago.

Reverse in trend after 3 years

This is the first time in the last three years that coal import trend has reversed, power sector experts said. The imports had gone down in the last three years since 2015. Data showed that the coal imports in December 2019 rose to 5.95 million tonnes from 5.54 million tonnes in the same period of FY2018-19. Power producers started importing coal after the Supreme Court last year allowed them to pass the higher costs of fuel to consumers.

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