Coal India expects 2.5% production growth

Kolkata, March 28 (IANS) After achieving a 9 per cent growth in coal production in the last financial year, Coal India expects to conclude this fiscal year with a 2.5 per cent growth in production and 2 per cent increase in coal off-take, an official said on Tuesday.

"We expect a production growth of 2.5 per cent by end of this fiscal and our off-take will have a 2 per cent growth," Coal India's Director-Marketing S.N. Prasad said here.

"This year, the production was impacted due to issues at Talcher mine and also issues related to rehabilitation and resettlement," he said on the sidelines of event Coal: Emerging Perspectives and Challenges, which was organised by Bharat Chamber of Commerce.

During 2016-17, the country's miner set a target of producing 598.61 million tonnes (mt) of coal with an 11.11 per cent growth over 538.75 mt produced by it in 2015-16.

The miner achieved 9 per cent production growth in the last fiscal, he said.

The miner's provisional data showed its production during the first 11 months (April to February) of the current fiscal grew by 2.3 per cent to 488.06 mt as against a target of 535.38 mt, set for the period. Its off-take was also at 534.50 mt in the last fiscal.

According to provisional data, the miner's off-take from April 2016 to February 2017 was at 490.86 mt as against a target of 540.31 mt.

Prasad said about 100 mt of coal stock was available at pit heads and thermal power plants.

The miner's projected production volume is 660.7 mt in 2017-18 and it envisaged production of 908.10 mt in 2019-20 with a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 12.98 per cent, with respect to 2014-15.

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