CIL’s e-auction booking to be all-time high at 120 MT this fiscal

Mining behemoth Coal India (CIL) may close the current fiscal, booking 120 million tonne (MT) ) coal for e-auction, the highest ever since coal sales began through the auction route. This is near double the bookings of 66 MT made for e-auction last fiscal, surpassing the company’s earlier estimates of e-auction booking for the ongoing fiscal.

A CIL official said, “the company booked 13.1 MT for e-auction during December this fiscal. Even if the same amount is booked each month for the remaining three months this fiscal, e-auction booking will cross 120 million tonne.”
CIL booked around 11% of its total production at 602 MT, for e-auction in 2019-2020. If CIL is able to reach its production target of 660 MT, e-auction bookings will be more than 18% this fiscal.

According to a company official, CIL’s efforts to book increased volumes of coal under e-auction, paid off in bolstering sales revenue. In the Covid-induced pandemic add- ons over the notified price were narrowed down helping the company scoring a strong 76.2% volume growth during the April-December period.

The PSU miner booked 81.4 MT coal under five auction windows progressively up to December, displaying a robust 35.2 MT volume expansion compared to 46.2 MT it booked the same period a year ago. Beginning October of the current fiscal, CIL introduced special spot auction for coal importers, under which it had already booked 7.3 MT in three months.

Premium over notified price has also been gaining steadily since October with CIL as whole netting a 15% premium during April-December period. Among the subsidiaries, Eastern Coalfields clocked the highest 40% increase over the notified prices followed by Central Coalfields and Bharat Coking Coal, registering 23% and 22% premium over the notified prices, respectively.

“We have identified specific mines in ECL, BCCL, CCL and SECL from where the response has been positive ” a CIL executive said. Non-power sector consumers, under an exclusive auction window, booked 19.8 MT during the first nine months of the ongoing fiscal against 6.8 MT the sector booked during the same period a year ago, registering a three-fold increase.

For December, the company allocated 13.1 MT of coal surging ahead with 72% growth compared to 7.6 MT booked during December last fiscal. Premium earned over the notified price was 25%. During December in the current fiscal there was a significant increase in bookings from power sector under special forward auction at 5.1 MT compared to 0.5 MT the same month a year ago. The December booking from the power sector this fiscal fetched a premium of 12%.