THREAD: Dizzying U-turns on #ImportedCoal In 3 months, the Centre has gone from mandating imported #coal blending for power gencos to making it optional. In May, @MinOfPower directed gencos to blend 10% imported coal or face domestic supply reduction. google.com/amp/s/wap.busi…
The ministry even evoked Section 11 of the Electricity Act allowing all power generators to pass through the high cost of imported coal on the consumers. wap.business-standard.com/article/econom…
@ntpclimited was the first to place import tender of 6.25 million tonne. All the tenders totaling Rs 8,308 crore went to @AdaniOnline It estimated a 50-70 paisa/unit increase in power tariff after 10% imported coal blending. wap.business-standard.com/article-amp/co…
As several states clamoured against the idea of importing coal, PowerMin asked them to put their tenders in abeyance. It instead directed national miner & world's 2nd largest coal producer @CoalIndiaHQ to import coal for first time in its history. business-standard.com/article/compan…
But as against an estimated demand of 40 million tonne, CIL received interest for barely 2.4 MT from states and private gencos. The first tender of Rs 4,500 crore went to Adani Enterprises and the second to a blacklisted firm from Indonesia. google.com/amp/s/wap.busi…
But the constant policy flips over coal imports has fazed the state-owned and private gencos with a cumulative capacity of 108 gigawatt which cannot afford costly imports and are also not paid by discoms in time. I explained here: wap.business-standard.com/article/econom…
This also raised a pertinent question - does India even need imported coal? I and @DhruvakshSaha explored the history of coal demand supply mismatch in the country and how the current kneejerk reactions do more disservice. wap.business-standard.com/article-amp/ec…
Yesterday, the PowerMin revoked all its earlier decisions on imported coal, leaving it upto the states and gencos to import coal, if need be. It even told NTPC to reduce blending to 5% from 10%. wap.business-standard.com/article/econom…
Closing this thread with a recorded claim that India will bring down coal import to zero by 2023-24. pib.gov.in/Pressreleasesh…
@shreya_jai 2023-24 is just round the corner. How would CIL increase production by more than 25% in just two years. Unfortunately Press Release has no reference to specific strategies that would be deployed.