Coal India (CIL) is set to miss its production target for the 2019-2020 fiscal year ending 31 March, its 14th consecutive miss. But it has still raised its target for 2020-2021 to meet India's rising coal requirements.
CIL's 2019-2020 coal output is forecast at around 610 million tonnes against a targeted 660 million tonnes. Despite the looming miss for 2019-2020, CIL will aim for an output of 710 million tonnes in 2020-2021.
The company produced 606.89 million tonnes in 2018-2019 against a target of 610 million tonnes. The miss in 2019-2020 weighs on India's overall coal production as CIL meets more than 80 percent of India's coal production. The last time CIL beat its target was in 2005-2006.
Heavy rainfall, especially from July to October last year, hurt its mining operations and weighed on output and supplies. This led to a drop in national coal production, as well as a rise in imports. But CIL's monthly production falls compared with a year earlier has been turned around since December, led by growth at two of its largest affiliates Mahanadi Coalfields and South Eastern Coalfields.
More than half of India's power generation capacity is coal-based. Coal will continue to play a dominant role in its energy mix, even though the country is looking to reduce its dependence in the next 5-10 years.
CIL is also "exploring opportunities" to invest in coking and non-coking mines in Canada, Russia and Australia, the CIL executive said, although he declined to elaborate.
