Coal India reported the first increase in monthly shipments since February, after demand for the fuel picked up with easing of covid-19 restrictions.
The mining major shipped 44.34 million tonnes of coal in August, 9.3% more than a year earlier. Output rose 7% to 37.2 millions tonnes, the first increase in five months, company filing shows.
Power plants, which consume nearly 80% of Coal India’s sales, have seen their inventories slide from record levels earlier this year.
“Coal India is aggressively pushing its sales to make the best of the demand revival,” Rupesh Sankhe, vice president at Elara Capital India told Bloomberg.
“Its own stockpiles have swollen substantially and it is under pressure to bring that down.”
Q1
Coal India reported a 55% drop in its net profit for the quarter ended June to Rs 2,079.60 crore ($284 million) from Rs 4,629.67 crore ($631 million) in the corresponding quarter last year.
Revenue from operations dropped 25% to Rs 18,486.77 crore ($2.5 billion).
In Q1, the company’s offtake was 120.42 million tonnes against 153.49 million tonnes in the same period a year ago.
The single largest coal producing company in the world also plans to spend 1.22 trillion rupees ($16.7 billion) in about 500 projects related to coal evacuation infrastructure, exploration and clean coal technologies, coal minister Pralhad Joshi said in a separate statement.
The company is eyeing 1 billion tonnes of coal output by 2023-24, he said.
(With files from Bloomberg)